“The Grace of God”
Chapter 2: 11-15
Introduction:
There is a story told about a soldier in the army of Alexander the Great who deserted in the time of battle. He was caught and brought before Alexander. He stood condemned outright and knew that the penalty for desertion prescribed by Alexander was death. Now as he stood before the king he knew him to be a man who had the power of life and death. The man knew that Alexander could be merciless with his judgement of such deserters. He also knew that Alexander could also be merciful. So this deserter said to the king; “I know you are a king who can have me put to death for my desertion, however I also know that you can be merciful.” The deserter acknowledged the right of the king to have him put to death because he had violated the kings’ law, but he also knew that he could ask for mercy. Alexander was so impressed with this man’s humility and trust in his king that Alexander instantly pardoned him and sent him back into the ranks to fight for his king once again.
We know from the Word of God that our Triune God is a God of righteousness, justice and that while He punishes sin and rebellion he can also exercise mercy, as we read in scripture; “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10). We see this great truth exemplified at the cross where the steadfast love and faithfulness of God are fused together and where His righteousness and His peace are also fused together. In His wrath He also remembers mercy and bestows this mercy upon all who truly repent of their sins before Him and make no excuses for them.
As we read in the prophet Isaiah; “Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).
We are told in scripture that Righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne; and that loving devotion and faithfulness go before Him (Psalm 89:14). Even in His righteous anger He is able to show mercy (Habakkuk 3:2). He must punish sin and if He didn’t then He would not be the Triune God as we see revealed in the Spirit-breathed Word of God, He whose eyes are too pure and undefiled to look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13). Having said this He is also a God of grace. In this study we will look at the grace of God, what it is, and what it produces in the life of a New Covenant believer in Messiah.
Chapter 2: 11-15
(Vs. 11-15) “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Messiah, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.”
Exposition:
“For the grace of God has appeared” This grace is the revelation of God’s undeserved, unmerited favour for sinful man fully revealed in the Messiah our Lord Jesus, He who has always been with God from all eternity, and was Himself God, and was with God in the beginning, He through whom the earth and everything was created. He, the living and eternal Word of God, who was incarnated as a human being fully human and fully God in the one person and who in Himself revealed the grace of God in all of its fullness, the glory of God’s one and only Son who forth from God, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-5, 10, 14). As we are also told in scripture that; “God was in Messiah reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
And again scripture says that “in Messiah all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). And again we are told in scripture that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before (or has existed prior to) before all things, and in Him all things hold together (endure)” (Colossians 1:15-17). Now in heaven we have a resurrected man who is fully human and fully divine. He has “appeared” not as some phantom being but as a real physical man of flesh and blood, clearly showing Himself as the one who became (as a man who was also God) the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:9). The word “grace” also can describe one who “exercises His holy influence upon the soul of men and women, one full of good will and loving kindness, one expressing loveliness, and graceful in speech and conduct.”
“…that offers salvation to all men.” He, who is the full embodiment of God’s salvation and the one through whom God achieves this salvation. This salvation does not leave a sinner in their sin but saves them from its power and eternal penalty in the eternal lake of fire. It is offered to all men because “He God is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). As the apostle John writes; “Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Messiah is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil. Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:7-9).
This salvation is offered to all men and women. God does not select some for heaven and others for hell. While He knows in eternity who will ultimately be saved and who will ultimately be lost, He still gives men and women the choice (John 3:16-18). “He has tasted death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). He is the atoning sacrifice, not only for our sins as New Covenant believers, but for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). This salvation is the unmerited gift and undeserved favour of God that is received by the grace of God through faith and not by any works of man or by the action of the human will. As we also read in scripture; “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
This grace received through faith in the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Lord teaches us how to live in a way that pleases God. It is not some stagnant spiritual truth that is just acknowledged intellectually, but the very supernatural power of God released into the human Spirit by the Spirit of God and producing the new spiritual creation deep down on the inside and residing in the central seat of the affections, resulting in imparting a love for what God loves and a hate for what God hates (2 Corinthians 5:17). What then does God’s grace on the inside of us, if we have been spiritually reborn from above, teach us how to live?
“It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions”
It teaches us, the word “teaches” is not just a mere impartation of intellectual knowledge, although this is part of teaching. The word describes; “to be trained and instructed as one might train up a child, to chastise or even to castigate with words, to correct, to mould the character by reproof and admonition, to chastise with blows or of a judge ordering one to be scourged.” This teaching affects the whole course of a person’s life pointing it in the right direction. God trains us through discipline, which can be painful at times because of the desires of the fallen human nature which have to be brought into subjection to the Spirit of God, and in ordering the circumstances of our daily lives, not to be harsh with us, but to train us to be His sons and daughters and so by His Spirit be made in increasing measure to be conformed to the image of His Son our Lord Jesus.
As we read in Hebrews “Our fathers disciplined us for a short time as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees” (Hebrews 12:10-12). As we also read in scripture; “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,” (Romans 8:28-29). So then God’s grace teaches us…
To say “no” describes “to deny oneself, to disregard one’s own interests or to prove false to oneself or to act entirely unlike himself, to reject or to refuse something offered.” It is an act of the human will empowered by the Holy Spirit and under the power of the blood of Messiah. Without the power of the Holy Spirit we cannot make the right choices because in our fleshly nature there is nothing good or that is commendable to God at all (Romans 7:18). When tempted sometimes we just need to say “no” as an act of our will not of our emotions. One sure way to drive out the devil from our affairs is to make much of the blood of Messiah. By faith and confession when we speak into the unseen spirit realm what the Bible says the blood of Jesus does for us we will run the devil out of our affairs, and it is the blood that will protect us when attacked (Revelation 12:11). Our mouth is ‘the trigger’ that launches the missile that is the Word of God into the very heart of the devil himself! This is how we release the sword of the Spirit. When we practice this the devil takes a wide berth around us! (Psalm 8:2; 9:1-3).
“…to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions”
Grace teaches us to say “no” to the temptation to be irreverent in speech and action, to practice wickedness and to turn aside from the commands of God revealed in His Word, to misuse and to not rightly divide the Word of truth, and to live as if God did not exist, and to be filled with one’s selfish ways and to love what God hates and to hate what God loves being ungodliness or acting unlike God would act. It is to say; “no to worldly passions.” Literally to say; “no” to fleshly sinful desires, cravings, longings, lusts and desires for what is forbidden” by God, and that which is not in conformity with His revealed Word which is His will. These lusts are not just related to sexual sins, but also to the lust for wealth, worldly success, power, pleasure, fame or anything else that is essentially worldly or of this world that goes against the character and laws of our Triune God. While we live in this world we are having to make choices every day when we are confronted with the world, the flesh and the devil, and what these desire from us which is to be unfaithful to our Lord Jesus, to give up and to give in when the going gets tough, and ‘the flaming missiles’ of the devil are flying at us continuously from all directions.
When we choose to resist the devil and his attacks the power of the blessed Holy Spirit Himself is at hand to help us and to activate our faith in the power of the blood of Messiahthrough which we overcome Satan and everything he throws at us. More so, we have to call out asking that we be protected, surrounded and saturated by the blood of Jesus, and that we will be kept from Satan’s clutches. So we are to just say “no” when fierce and relentless temptation hits us hard, and call upon the LORD to empower us and protect us by the blood of Jesus. Added to this we now read…
“…and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age”
“To live” describes a life that is God’s eternal quality of life or the breath of God the Spirit Himself fused together with our inner spiritually regenerated spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). Metaphorically the word describes “to be in full vigour of life, to be fresh, strong, efficient, active, powerful and efficacious.” It is this life that empowers us to live “self-controlled” describing a lifestyle with “a sound mind or way of thinking, to be sober, alert, spiritually awake and aware of what is required, to live temperately and discreetly.”
And then we read that living a self-controlled life that it will be “upright and godly” describing “a life that is just and agreeable to doing those things that please God and are according to His Word, to live uprightly, to be morally upright, to be correct and have discernment in judgement and exhibit the quality of being straight, not crooked.” It was C.H. Spurgeon who likened a perfectly straight stick to the Word of God and then said that a stick that might be slightly bent that could not be detected by human sight, when stood alongside the perfectly straight stick the crookedness of that stick will be seen when alongside the perfectly straight one. He also said; “The Word of God is the iron anvil upon which the hammers of men’s opinions are smashed.”
Scripture teaches us to test all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and we do this by comparing everything we hear by way of teaching with the Word of God, the Bible. This uprightness of life is connected to “godly” or “godliness” describing a life that exhibits the character and true nature of our Triune God, especially living a life that the Holy Spirit is increasingly conforming to the image of our Lord Jesus Himself to which God has from all of eternity predestined us to live as followers of the Lord Jesus (Romans 8:28-30).
“…in this present age” which anticipates the Messianic Millennial Kingdom of God to come for 1,000 years after this present age has closed. According to the Word of God this present age we live in is an evil age out of which the faithful Body of Messiah will be rescued when He returns to earth. As we read; “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Messiah, who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen “(Galatians 1:3-5). As we live we also live in hope and with waiting in expectant faith.
“…while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Messiah,”
This waiting is one of anticipation of an event to come and a promise to be fulfilled. Of course we are told what we are waiting for being “the blessed hope” The word “hope” is not the world’s definition of hope which is “I hope so.” It is a radiant, confident, anticipation and expectancy of the Second Coming of Messiah. It is “a blessed hope” describing one that is; “a joyful and confident expectation” of eternal salvation. It is “having hope” in the one who has promised to return to this earth and to rescue all who are saved out of this present evil age. This radiant certainty is…
“…the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Messiah,”
Now the word “appearing” describes the physical second coming of Messiah, an event which will radiate the full glory of God, an appearance that all will see, not just an appearance of Him secretly to the Body of Messiah exclusively and not to the world, as taught by those in the pre-tribulation camp. The Lord Jesus was clear about His Second Coming and said it would be a visible event as bright as the lightning flashing across the sky (Matthew 24:27). The apostle John tells us that every eye will see Messiah’s Second Coming (Revelation 1:7). When the Messiah our Lord Jesus appears, He will be enshrouded in the glory of God, and with a pure and untainted light radiating out from Him brighter than the flash of lightning. Clearly this refers to His visible Second Coming to earth.
This is the same glory of God the Father which the Lord Jesus mentioned in relation to His Second coming (Luke 9:26) As we also read what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew’s gospel; “For the Son of Man will come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27). The fact that He is referred to as “our great God and Saviour” clearly identifies His eternal deity as the third person of the eternal Godhead, being Himself God the Son, the living and eternal Word of God Himself manifest in the flesh (John 1:1-5, 14).
He is “our great God” one who is “eminent in His ability, perfectly virtuous in every way, one with absolute authority and sovereign power, One to be highly esteemed for His excellence and for His position and prominence, one who is splendid to behold and stately in His appearance.” The fact that He is “our Great God” signifies that the Messiah our Lord Jesus is our personal God in who dwells the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. He is the one who dwells with His Body on earth corporately (the faithful Church) and lives within the individual members of His Body through the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, being God the Spirit. Being our personal God and Saviour the Messiah our Lord Jesus has our very best interests at heart both in spiritual and temporal matters, and no situation or circumstance we face in this present life are out of His control.
As we read in scripture; “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Not all things that happen to us are from God. Some things are due to our own mistakes or wrong decisions or because we have yielded to a temptation. Some things happen to us because of situations that are out of our control. Other situations happen because of what others say and do that are not our fault. However, in all of these things God works them together for our good because we love Him and are called according to His purposes ordained for us from all of eternity. As David wrote “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16b).
He is not only our Great God but also “our great Saviour” the one who has saved us (Justification) who is saving us (sanctification) who will ultimately save us (Redemption). The word salvation has three tenses. We were saved when we repented and believed on Him who shed His blood to atone for our sins, and by whose shed blood we were redeemed and received the forgiveness of our sin. We are being saved or sanctified and being progressively set apart to God by the work of the Holy Spirit in us. We will be ultimately saved when at the Second Coming we are delivered out of this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father.
Justification (being declared righteous by God through faith in Messiah) brings forgiveness for our sin, sanctification brings a progressive separation of us from the power of sin in our lives, and the fullness of our redemption when at the rapture and resurrection we will be saved for the very presence of sin itself. This is our Great God and Saviour who has accomplished this for us, and the one who saves to the uttermost! As the author of Hebrew writes; “But because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely (to the uttermost) those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly befits us—One who is holy, innocent, undefiled, set apart from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:24-26). This great salvation is fully revealed in the Messiah our Lord Jesus…
“who gave Himself for us to redeem us” He who sacrificed Himself for us, who paid the full penalty for our sins, the one who died as our substitute, as He who knew no sin whom God made to be sin with our sin that we might be made righteous with the Messiah’s righteousness. At the cross there was an exchange in that our sins were laid upon the Lord Jesus so that His righteousness might be credited to us by faith and not by works (2 Corinthians 5:21) (Isaiah 53:5-6) (Ephesians 8-10).
“…to redeem us” The word “redeem” describes “to be released from a state of imprisonment having one’s debt fully paid, to liberate by the payment of a ransom, to be delivered from evils and wickedness of all kinds both internally in our hearts and externally in our words and actions.” The price of that redemption was the blood of Messiah, our Passover Lamb sacrificed for us, in our behalf and in our place (1 Corinthians 5:7).
A story has been told about a little boy who had a small sail boat that he had created himself with much love and tender care. He just loved that little boat and loved to sail it on the river and was full of joy to see it sail along under his watchful eye. One day he took it down to the river as he always did and put it into the water. Suddenly an adverse wind hit the sail boat and carried it out into the flowing river and the sail boat vanished from the boy’s sight causing him great grief over that which was lost. Sometime later he was walking through his local village and happened to look in the window of the local op shop and saw his little sail boat sitting on the shelf gaining dust. He immediately went into the owner of the op shop and paid the price required to purchase that little sail boat. He was so overjoyed at finding it and redeeming it, and after wiping it clean took it down to the river and sailed it once again keeping a watchful eye upon its progress and never letting it out of his sight. Once again that little sail boat was fulfilling the purpose for which it had been created.
Forgiveness and cleansing from sin is through the redemption we have through the blood of Messiah according to the richness of God’s undeserved and unmerited favour (Ephesians 1:7). Now Paul then tells us three things that the Messiah our Lord Jesus accomplished on our behalf through His substitutionary sacrifice to redeem us…
“…from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.”
“…from all wickedness” Notice the word “all” not “some of” or “most of” but all of it being “all wickedness” or it can be translated “every lawless deed accompanied by a contempt for God’s law with the full intention of violating it as an act of rebellion.” As the apostle John writes; “Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil. Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning (living a habitually sinful way of life), because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:7-9) (2 Corinthians 5:17). The problem is not with the law of God but with us that are born with a sinful nature and with a natural pre-disposition towards sin (Psalm 51:5), a power that can only be broken by the blood of Messiah when sin has been confessed accompanied by a heartfelt desire to be rid of it (1 John 1:7-9). A salvation that leaves a sinner in his or her sins is not Biblical salvation. So the Messiah has redeemed us by His blood to cleanse us from all wickedness in order…
“…to purify for Himself a people that are His very own”
The word “purify” in a physical sense is to cleanse something by water such as we see related to lepers in the scripture. In a moral sense it is “to free from defilement of sin and from faults, to purify from wickedness, to free from guilt of sin, to purify to consecrate by cleansing or purifying, to consecrate, dedicate and to pronounce clean in a Levitical sense” which the Law of Moses required of those whom God had cleaned of their leprosy. In scripture leprosy is used metaphorically to illustrate sin, and when we see the Lord Jesus cleansing a man or a woman of their leprosy it points to the Messiah as the one who spiritually cleanses one from the ‘leprosy’ of sin by His blood which is the eternal foundation for the forgiveness of sin and for the cleansing from it (1 Peter 1:19) (Revelation 13:8). We are saved from sin to serve the LORD. Through the blood of Messiah God purifies us as His very own people…
“…eager to do what is good” or we could translate it as one “who is zealous for good deeds” The word “zealous” itself describes “one burning with zeal, to defend and to uphold a thing and to be zealous for it, to defend and uphold a thing or vehemently contending for a thing.” We see this zeal displayed when the Messiah our Lord Jesus took a whip and drove out from the Temple all the money preachers profiteering on the blood of the Lamb. The time will come when the Lord Jesus will once again drive out of the Body of Messiah, His temple, the hyper faith money preachers fleecing the flock of their hard earned dollars and it will come, not by a physical whip, but through the whip of the zealous jealousy of the Triune God bringing about a righteous and just judgement upon those impious covetous money preachers and greedy shepherds feeding only themselves for whom the blackest darkness has been reserved forever (Jude 1:11-13).
This zealousness for the things of God and for the things pertaining to his kingdom are expressed in the good works exhibited described as those works that are “beautiful, handsome, excellent, eminent, choice, surpassing, precious, useful, suitable, commendable, admirable beautiful to look at, shapely, magnificent, genuine, approved, precious, praiseworthy, noble, beautiful by reason of purity of heart and life, and hence praiseworthy, morally good, noble, honourable, conferring honour upon one and affecting the mind agreeably, comforting and confirming.” Zeal for God and for the things of God and for the things concerning the spiritual welfare of the Body of Messiah will always be grounded on zealousness for His Word (Acts 20:32; 21:20). This zeal for the LORD was the mark of the Patriarchs, the prophets, the Lord Jesus, the apostles and the Body of Messiah in the Book of Acts. They were not perfect of course and had their setbacks but their zeal for the Word of the LORD was evident in their lives.
It also needs to be said that there is a zealousness prompted by a religious spirit that has not been given by the Spirit of God and it was the apostle Paul who said he had this before he was born again. In his case it was a genuine zealousness for God and for His law but not that zealousness enlightened by the Spirit of God (Galatians 1:14) (Philippians 3:6) (Acts 22:3) (Romans 10:2) (Galatians 4:17) (Proverbs 19:2). Paul came to see how misguided his zeal was when he wrote “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man; yet because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy. And the grace of our Lord overflowed to me, along with the faith and love that are in Messiah Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:13-14). Now Paul once again affirms the things he had already authorised Titus to teach. He now adds to his instructions to Titus…
“These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.”
“Encourage” the word describes one who is “to call to one’s side and to summon them, to address them, to call upon them by way of exhortation, by comfort and faithful instruction, to admonish, to beg, to beseech, to strive to appease by entreaty, to console or to strengthen another with consolation or with comfort.” This is a very strongly defined word which has both an encouraging aspect as well as an exhortation aspect to seek to strive after what has been taught, to pay close attention to the teaching and to listen to the summons issued with a solemnity of hearing.
“…and rebuke” This word is connected to the world encourage but carries with it primarily the idea “to convict, refute, confute generally with a suggestion of shame of the person convicted and by that conviction to bring to the light what has been hidden in darkness, to expose, to find fault with and to correct false and deceptive teaching. It is to be done by word; “to reprehend severely, chide, admonish, reprove, to call to account, show one his fault, demand an explanation” and by deed “to chasten, to punish” not to unjustly attack them with a vindictive attitude but to correct them in their thinking and to seek to turn them back to and lead them into the path that is in line with sound Biblical doctrine.
“…with all authority” describes “an injunction or a court order not to be violated, a mandate, a decree carrying with it authority and a command to be obeyed.” The idea of “all authority” means that Titus was not to back down when opposition raised itself, and in this situation with the false teachers at work among the believing communities on Crete, this apostolic mandate was an absolute necessity for Titus to carry through. The same apostolic authority is still in force today in the New Testament completed Canon of scripture.
“Do not let anyone despise you” describes “one who sets themselves or exults themselves above others, and in this context “one who condemns and despises lawful authority.” This theme of subjection to authority expands into the secular Roman government. In our next study we will look at this and what else is in conformity with sound doctrine especially that concerning salvation.
