Scripture Reference: Titus 2:11-15
What Grace Does – Continued
It has often been said that these three words: self-controlled, upright, and godly, each look in a different direction. Self-control has reference to ourselves; uprightness to our fellow men; and godliness to God. There is, in other words, nothing unbalanced about the life grace enables us to live. There is an all-roundedness about it. The aim of divine grace is to make us Christians who in every area of life, man-ward, self-ward, and God-ward, are well-pleasing to God, our heavenly Father.
That being so, our clear duty is to co-operate with this grace and not resist it. It is taking us in the direction of a life in which ungodliness and worldly passions have no place; a life in which self-control, uprightness, and godliness hold absolute sway. Therefore we are to steadily follow its leadings, adopting daily the godly lifestyle, already outlined in the whole of the second chapter of Titus, and that it is prompting and empowering us to adopt into a lifestyle.
Until He Comes . . .
As we continue on in Paul’s Epistle, it is apparent that the Apostle has a particular reason for this emphasis on God’s grace. He speaks there of “the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” It is something yet in the future. The “present age” to which he refers at the end of the previous verse has not yet run its course. How are we to live in the meantime, as we wait for Christ’s return? The grace of God in salvation, teaching us to renounce sin and to live lives that are in every way pleasing to God, supplies us with our answer.
Something Certain
It is time now to move on to the glorious appearing itself, noticing, to begin with, that Paul describes it as our “blessed hope.” Normally when we use the word hope, the reference is to something uncertain, not yet attained. We hope that we’re going to get the job we have applied for, but of course we can’t be totally sure. We hope that we shall be able to visit again next year, but there is no guarantee that we will be able to. Hope is not the sort of word we use when we are speaking about something that is absolutely certain!
However, and that is a big however, in the Bible it is different. If you go back to the first chapter of Titus you will notice that in the reference to when we are looking at the hope of eternal life. Hope is repeatedly used for blessings that will one day be truly and totally ours. We do not have them yet, however. They still lie in the future. But they are promised to us and are therefore sure. That is very much the case Paul is making with “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” It is a subject of explicit and repeated promise. He is most definitely coming back! That’s why Paul can speak about it here as our “blessed hope.”
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 