Las Vegas, Nevada Church
Affiliated with the Intercontinental Church of God and the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

 
 
 Survey of the Letters of Paul:  Titus 3:7
  
                                                                                                                                                                                    
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Titus 3:7
That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
 
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This section has 5 verses.
 
Titus 3:3-7
3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
4 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 us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
 
We will begin with the Barclay commentary.

THE DOUBLE DYNAMIC

First, the paraphrase of verses 3-7:

For we too were once senseless, disobedient, misguided, slaves to all kinds of desires and pleasures, living in maliciousness and envy, detestable ourselves, and hating each other. But when the goodness and the love to men of God our Saviour appeared, it was not by works wrought in righteousness, which we ourselves had done, but by his own mercy that he saved us. That saving act was made effective to us through that washing, through which there comes to us the rebirth and the renewal which are the work of the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out upon us, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And the aim of all this was that we might be put into a right relationship with God through his grace, and so enter into possession of eternal life, for which we have been taught to hope.

THE dynamic of the Christian life is twofold. It comes first from the realization that converts to Christianity were once no better than their non-Christian neighbours. Christian goodness does not make people proud; it makes them supremely grateful. When Christians looked at others, living life by the standards of Roman society, they did not regard them with contempt; they said, as the Methodist George Whitefield said when he saw the criminal on the way to the gallows: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’

It comes from the realization of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Perhaps no passage in the New Testament more concisely, and yet more fully, sets out the work of Christ for us than this. There are seven outstanding facts about that work here.

(1) Jesus put us into a new relationship with God. Until he came, God was the King before whom people stood in awe, the Judge before whom they cringed in terror, the Ruler whom they could regard only with fear. Jesus came to tell men and women of the Father whose heart was open and whose hands were stretched out in love. He came to tell them not of the justice which would pursue them forever but of the love which would never let them go.

(2) The love and grace of God are gifts which no one could ever earn; they can only be accepted in perfect trust and in awakened love. God offers his love to us simply out of the great goodness of his heart, and Christians never think of what they have earned but only of what God has given. The keynote of the Christian life must always be wondering and humble gratitude, never proud self-satisfaction. The whole process is due to two great qualities of God.

It is due to his goodness. The word is chre¯stote¯s and means graciousness. It means that spirit which is so kind that it is always eager to give whatever gift may be necessary. Chre¯stote¯s is an all-embracing kindliness, which produces not only warm feeling but also generous action at all times.

It is due to God’s love to men and women. The word is philanthro¯pia, and it is defined as love of someone as a human being. The Greeks thought much of this beautiful word. They used it for the kindliness of good people to their equals, for a good king’s graciousness to his subjects, for a generous individual’s active pity for those in any kind of distress, and especially for the compassion which made someone pay the ransom for another who had fallen into captivity.

Behind all this is no human merit but only the gracious kindliness and the universal love which are in the heart of God.

(3) This love and grace of God are mediated [removal of misunderstanding] through the Church. They come through the sacrament of baptism. That is not to say that they can come in no other way, for God is not confined within his sacraments; but the door to them is always open through the Church. When we think of baptism in the earliest days of the Church, we must remember that it was the baptism of grown men and women coming directly out of the ancient idolatrous religions. It was the deliberate leaving of one way of life to enter upon another. When Paul writes to the people of Corinth, he says: ‘You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified’ (1 Corinthians 6:11). In the letter to the Ephesians, he says that Jesus Christ took the Church ‘in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word’ (Ephesians 5:26). In baptism, there came the cleansing, re-creating power of God.

Quoted verses:
1 Corinthians 6:11 ...but I will read from verse 9
9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Ephesians 5:26
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

In this connection, Paul uses two words.

He speaks of rebirth (paliggenesia). Here is a word which had many associations. After baptism, converts who were received into the Jewish faith were treated as if they were little children. It was as if they had been reborn and life had begun all over again. The Pythagoreans [puh-tha'guh-REE-uns] used the word frequently. They believed in reincarnation and that people returned to life in many forms until they were fit to be released from it. Each return was a rebirth. The Stoics used the word. They believed that every 3,000 years the world was destroyed in a great fire, and that then there was a rebirth of a new world. When people entered the mystery religions, they were said to be ‘reborn for eternity’. The point is that when we accept Christ as Saviour and Lord, life begins all over again. There is a newness about life which can be likened only to a new birth.

He speaks of a renewing. It is as if life were worn out and, when someone discovers Christ, there is an act of renewal, which is not over and done with in one moment of time but repeats itself every day.

(4) THE grace and love of God are mediated to men and women within the Church, but behind it all is the power of the Holy Spirit. All the work of the Church, all the words of the Church, all the sacraments of the Church have no effect unless the power of the Holy Spirit is there. However well a church is organized, however splendid its ceremonies may be, however beautiful its buildings, all is ineffective without that power. The lesson is clear. Revival in the Church comes not from increased efficiency in organization but from waiting upon God. It is not that efficiency is not necessary; but no amount of efficiency can breathe life into a body from which the Spirit has departed.

(5) The effect of all this is threefold. It brings forgiveness for past sins. In his mercy, God does not hold our sins against his sins. ‘Man,’ said Augustine, ‘look away from your sins and look to God.’ It is not that we should live our lives without being perpetually repentant for our sins; but the very memory of our sins should move us to wonder at the forgiving mercy of God.

(6) The effect is also new life in the present. Christianity does not confine its offer to blessings which shall be. It offers us here and now life of a quality which we have never known before. When Christ enters into our lives, for the first time we really begin to live.

(7) Last, there is the hope of even greater things. Christians are men and women for whom the best is always still to be; they know that, however wonderful life on earth with Christ may be, the life to come will be greater still. Christians are people who know the wonder of the forgiveness of past sins, the thrill of present life with Christ, and the hope of the greater life which is yet to come. ~Barclay Commentary

Now to the other commentaries. We will begin with the general and move to the specific. We will begin with the Matthew Henry Main commentary which covers 1-8. I am breaking in where it discusses verse 7

(10.) Here are the ends why we are brought into this new spiritual condition, namely, justification, and heirship, and hope of eternal life: That, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Justification in the gospel sense is the free remission of a sinner, and accepting him as righteous through the righteousness of Christ received by faith [all this speaking of the salvation process into which we are placed].

In it there is the removing of guilt that bound to punishment, and the accepting and dealing with the person as one that now is righteous in God's sight. This God does freely as to us, yet through the intervention of Christ's sacrifice and righteousness, laid hold on by faith (Romans 3:20, etc.): By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; but through the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those that believe, whence (Romans 3:24) we are said to be justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

Quoted verses:
Romans 3:20
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:24
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

God, in justifying a sinner in the way of the gospel, is gracious to him, and yet just to himself and his law, forgiveness being through a perfect righteousness, and satisfaction made to justice by Christ, who is the propitiation [pruh-pish-ee-ey-shuh n] [to make favorably inclined] for sin, and not merited by the sinner himself. So it is here: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. It is by grace, as the spring and rise (as was said), though through the redemption that is in Christ as making the way, God's law and justice being thereby satisfied, and by faith applying that redemption. By him (by Christ) all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses, Acts 13:39.

Quoted verse:
Acts 13:39
And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Let us look at a commentary on this verse to better understand the phrase. "justified from all things."
 
And by him all that believe are justified from all things - Christ, as God, is not only the justifier of his people, who pronounces them righteous in the sight of God; but his righteousness imputed to them is the matter of their justification, or that by which they are justified; and not the works of the law, or obedience to the Gospel, or internal holiness, either in whole or in part, or the grace of faith, but the object of it, Christ, and his righteousness: and justification by this is complete and perfect; it is from all sin, original and actual, secret and open, greater or lesser sins; sins of presumption and ignorance, of omission or commission; from all things the law can charge with, as breaches of it; from all things which the justice of God can demand satisfaction for; and from all things that Satan, or a man's own conscience, can justly accuse him of. And those that believe in Christ with the heart unto righteousness, are openly and manifestly justified in their own consciences, and can claim their interest in it, and have the comfort of it, as well as they were before secretly justified in the mind of God, and in their head and representative Jesus Christ. And from all sin these are justified of God, as Beza's ancient copy reads, "for it is God that justifies", Romans 8:33 against whom men have sinned, and whose law they have violated, and whose justice they have affronted, by reason of which they are liable to condemnation; but God justifies them, by imputing the righteousness of his Son to them, in which he views them as without fault, unblamable and irreprovable; and though all men are not justified, yet many are; even all the seed of Israel, all the elect of God, everyone that believes in Christ, as all do who are ordained to eternal life; Christ's righteousness is imputed and applied to all these, and therefore they shall never enter into condemnation, but shall be acquitted and discharged from all things. ~John Gill [emphasis mine]

Quoted verse:
Romans 8:33
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? [who shall accuse, or condemn, or so charge with crime before God?] It is God that justifieth.

Note: Look at that phrase in the latter part of the commentary: "but God justifies them, by imputing the righteousness of his Son to them."  This means that God is assigning the righteousness of Christ upon the life and mind and heart of the one He called.  God brought you into the salvation process and there you learn of the righteousness of Christ and apply it [by the power of the Holy Spirit] unto your character.  This is you developing the mind of Christ into your mind.

Now continuing in the Matthew Henry Main:

Hence the apostle desires to be found in him, not having his own righteousness, which was of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Let us not trust therefore in our own righteousness or merit of good works, but in Christ's righteousness alone, received by faith for justification and acceptance with God. Inherent righteousness we must have, and the fruits of it in works of obedience; not however as our justifying righteousness before God, but as fruits of our justification, and evidences of our interest in Christ and qualification for life and happiness, and the very beginning and part of it; but the procuring of all this is by Christ, that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs. Observe, Our justification is by the grace of God, and our justification by that grace is necessary in order to our being made heirs of eternal life; without such justification there can be no adoption and sonship, and so no right of inheritance. John 1:12, Whoever received him (namely, Christ), to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to those that believed on his name. Eternal life is set before us in the promise, the Spirit works faith in us and hope of that life, and so are we made heirs of it and have a kind of possession of it even now; faith and hope bring it near, and fill with joy in the well-grounded expectation of it. The meanest believer is a great heir. Though he has not his portion in hand, he has good hope through grace, and may bear up under all difficulties. There is a better state in view. He is waiting for an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for him. How well may such comfort themselves with these words! And now all this gives good reason why we should show all meekness to all men, because we have experienced so much benefit by the kindness and love of God to us, and may hope that they, in God's time, may be partakers of the like grace as we are. And thus of the reasons of equal and gentle, meek and tender behaviour to wards others, from their own bad condition in time past, and the present more happy state into which they are brought, without any merit or deservings of their own, and whereinto by the same grace others may be brought also.

Quoted verse:
John 1:12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:


Here is an item from the Biblical Illustrator

That being justified by His grace
Justification; faith; works

I. The moral rectification of the soul.
1. All souls in their unrenewed state are unrighteous.
2. Restoration to righteousness is the merciful work of God.
3. In this moral rectification of soul there is the heirship of eternal good.

II. The essential foundation of all true faith. To believe in God implies
1. To believe in what He is in Himself—the only absolute existence, without beginning, without succession, without end, who is in all and through all, the All-Mighty, the All-Wise, the All-Good Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
2. To believe in what He is to us—the Father, the Proprietor, and the Life.

III. The supreme purpose of moral existence is to maintain good works.

1. Good works are
(1) Works that have right motives.
(2) Works that have a right standard.

2. The maintenance of these works requires strenuous and constant effort.

3. The great work of the Christian ministry is to stimulate this effort. ~Biblical Illustrator

We have time for a quick look at the specific commentaries.

The verse is generally broken out in three parts:

1] That being justified by his grace.
2] We should be made heirs.
3] According to the hope of eternal life.


1] That being justified by his grace.

That being justified by his grace - Not by our own works, but by his favor or mercy; see the notes at Romans 3:24. ~Barnes Notes

Quoted verse: ...already quoted above
Romans 3:24
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

2] We should be made heirs.

Should be made heirs - The Gospel not only gave them the hope of an endless state of glory for their souls, but also of the resurrection and final glorification of their bodies; and they who were children of God were to be made heirs of his glory. ~Adam Clarke

3] According to the hope of eternal life.

According to the hope of eternal life - In reference to the hope of eternal life; that is, we have that hope in virtue of our being adopted with the family of God, and being made heirs. He has received us as his children, and permits us to hope that we shall live with him forever. ~Barnes Notes

So, we are:
1] justified by God within the salvation process.
2] we are the heirs of eternal life, a spiritual body in the Family of God and heirs of His glory.
3] we have the hope of that very eternal life, being received by God as His children and His absolutely giving us that hope.

These are the lessons of verse 7



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