Commentaires bibliques

Ch. 3. The Apostolate—its Ministry of Goodwill and Good Works

The last verse of chap, 2, in gathering up the previous counsels, also makes a link for passing to the further consideration of social and civil duties generally. So the R.V. in printing the verse as a separate paragraph. Westcott and Hort connect entirely with chap. 3.

The duty is laid down in Titus 3:1-2 of living ‘in the bond of peace,’ (‘even if tyrannical’ is implied, but with Pauline tact not expressed), and ‘in dutiful allegiance to the constituted authority.’ This is enforced (Titus 3:3-5) by the motive of God’s saving love to men ‘even when they were enemies,’ and (Titus 3:6-7) of the power, conveyed through the gift of the Spirit, for such a spiritual life. The appeal to this high calling closes the last of the special counsels in practical duty; as a similar lofty strain closed the last but one, Titus 3:14. St Paul, in drawing to an end, recapitulates (as at the end of the first letter to Timothy) the main points of the letter, viz., (1) the practical issues of religion in all the duties of life, in Titus 3:8; a summary of Titus 2:1 to Titus 3:7; the silencing of false teachers through his appointment of good and sound elders, and his own vigorous soundness, in Titus 3:9-11; a summary of Titus 1:5-16. The chapter and letter then close with personal directions (Titus 3:12-14), and salutations (Titus 3:15).

1–7. The duty of living in peace from a sense of God’s love and through the Spirit’s power

1. Put them in mind] ‘Them’ must be ‘the Cretan Christians’ generally: St Paul is gathering all up in his mind for his final counsel. The verb for ‘put in mind,’ and its substantive, occur twice in St John, once in St Luke, but in St Paul only in the Pastoral Epistles three times; in St Peter’s Epistles three times; and once in St Jude’s. John 14:26 shews the full construction, accus. of person and of thing, ‘He shall bring all things to your remembrance.’ The A.V. in 3 John 1:10, ‘I will remember his deeds,’ is surely in the old sense of ‘remember,’ which survives in our valedictory request ‘remember me to all your circle;’ R.V. ‘bring to remembrance,’ cf. note on the similar compound 2 Timothy 1:6.

to be subject to principalities and powers] Rather, more fully as R.V. to be in subjection. Elsewhere in St Paul’s Epistles the phrase ‘principalities and powers’ refers to spiritual and angelic powers, good or evil, cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24; Ephesians 3:10; Colossians 1:16. But the word in its old sense (see Bible Word-Book, p. 477) was used of any ‘chief place,’ as in 2Ma 4:27 of the office of high priest. And the meaning here is the same as in the two places where it occurs in the Gospels, Luke 12:11, where our Lord prophesies that His disciples shall be brought before ‘the rulers and the authorities,’ and Luke 20:20, ‘so as to deliver him up to the rule and to the authority of the governor.’ There is not sufficient warrant for the connecting ‘and’ here; render to rulers to authorities. Both words illustrate the idiom ‘res pro persona.’ Vulg. ‘potestates’ from whence the Italian podestà a magistrate. The difference between the two words is that the former expresses a governing de facto, whether also de jure or not, the latter a governing de jure, a duly constituted authority. ‘They who rule’ occurs with ‘the authorities’ in the locus classicus, Romans 13:1, where, however, R.V. has retained ‘power,’ apparently because from that passage the phrase ‘the powers that be’ has become an English household word in the sense of ‘lawful authority.’ The other household use of ‘powers’ in the phrase ‘The Great Powers,’ seems to belong rather to the synonym dynamis as expressing material force. In Matthew 28:18 the change from ‘power’ to ‘authority’ in R.V. enhances the kingly office and prerogative.

to obey magistrates] The word only occurs Acts 5:29; Acts 5:32; Acts 27:21, where a dative follows; and so it may be here, if we join it with the preceding; but it seems more Pauline to add the verb absolutely. From note on Titus 2:5 we should expect it to differ from the preceding clause, in being more specific in its reference to the official system of government; render perhaps to obey their rules, ‘to obey state laws.’ Fairbairn refers to the earlier history of the island and a ‘known tendency on the part of the Cretans to insubordination and turmoil,’ quoting from Polybius vi. 46, ‘constantly upset by seditions and murders and tribal wars.’

to be ready to every good work] This takes us on a step still further; first a general submission, then a loyal acceptance and execution of public orders, then the learning and labouring truly to get one’s own living and to do one’s duty, domestic, social and civil. That ‘the good work’ has such a reference is implied in Romans 13:3. The ‘ready’ is exactly ‘whatsover ye do, do it heartily unto the Lord,’ cf. Colossians 3:23. ‘The true workman never shirks when the overseer is not by; he has not one rule for work done for himself, and another for work done for his master. There is a work that is mean and pitiful; all grudging unwilling toil, all ‘scamped’ work, fair to the eye but second rate in reality, is mean and pitiful; it is like work done by the slave at the whip’s end, or like the labour of the convict in gaol; it is forced and unwelcome and as badly done as possible.’ M. A. Lewis, Faithful Soldiers and Servants, p. 58.

2. to speak evil of no man] Cf. 1 Timothy 1:20; 1 Timothy 6:1; Titus 2:5. In the first place used absolutely ‘to blaspheme,’ as Acts 26:11, ‘I strove to make them blaspheme.’

to be no brawlers, but gentle] Better, as R.V., not to be contentious; the word only occurs in N. T., 1 Timothy 3:3, where it is joined, as here, with ‘gentle’ or ‘forbearing’; see note there.

shewing all meekness] The compound form of the word has occurred 1 Timothy 6:11, coupled with ‘patience,’ see note. The distinction between ‘gentleness’ above and ‘meekness’ is given by Aquinas (quoted in N. T. Syn. p. 152), as twofold, (1) ‘gentleness,’ clementia, is ‘lenitas superioris ad inferiorem’; meekness, mansuetudo, is ‘cuiuslibet ad quemlibet’: (2) ‘gentleness’ is in outward acts, ‘est moderativa exterioris punitionis’; ‘meekness’ is in the inner spirit, ‘proprie diminuit passionem irae.’ But besides its separateness of force in combination with ‘gentleness,’ the ‘meekness’ here is especially fitted to lead on to the argument of the next verse from its own proper sense. ‘It is an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God, when we accept His dealings with us without disputing. He that is meek indeed will know himself a sinner amongst sinners; or if there was One who could not know Himself such, yet He too bore a sinner’s doom and endured therefore the contradiction of sinners, Matthew 11:29, “I am meek and lowly of heart;” and this knowledge of his own sin will teach him to endure meekly the provocations with which they may provoke him, and not to withdraw himself from the burdens which their sin may impose upon him (Galatians 6:1; 2 Timothy 2:25).’ N. T. Syn. p. 150.

3. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish] ‘Sometimes’ in the old sense of ‘sometime,’ Ephesians 2:13, ‘ye who sometimes were afar off.’ Cp. Shaksp. Rich. II. 1. 2. 54 (Bible Word-Book, p. 551):

‘Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother’s wife

With her companion grief must end her life.’

The position and tense of the verb and particle justify our rendering For there was a time when we too were foolish. ‘Foolish’; ‘in this word there is always a moral fault lying at the root of the intellectual,’ N. T. Syn. § 75; as in Luke 24:25, ‘O foolish men and slow of heart,’ and Galatians 3:1 ‘O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you?’ so ‘wanting in spiritual sense,’ ‘blind’; cf. 1 Timothy 6:9; 2 Timothy 3:9.

disobedient, deceived] disobedient, as Titus 1:16, 2 Timothy 3:2, and all other N.T. passages; ‘insuadibiles,’ Theod. Mops. Lat.; ‘inobedientes,’ Jerome; not as Vulg.’ increduli,’ ‘distrustful;’ going astray, rather than ‘deceived;’ the verb is no doubt used in both passive and neuter sense, but compare the use of the pres. part., Matthew 18:12, ‘doth he not leave the ninety and nine … and seek that which goeth astray?’ and 1 Peter 2:25, ‘For ye were going astray like sheep;’ where the argument for patience from a sense of having erred and strayed is just the same. May not St Peter have taken up this very force of the word, and so been led to the quotation from Isaiah 53? It is a question whether even in 2 Timothy 3:13 ‘leading astray and going astray’ would not express the antithesis better than ‘deceiving and being deceived.’ There is no stress on their ‘being deceived,’ which might furnish rather an excuse than an aggravation.

serving divers lusts and pleasures] The Greek is stronger, being the slaves of, as Luke 16:13 ‘to be God’s slave and Mammon’s slave’ and elsewhere. ‘Divers’ is only used by St Paul in these ‘Pastoral’ letters; of diseases, Luke 4:40 : twice in Heb., twice in St Peter, once in St James. But the compound is used of ‘wisdom,’ Ephesians 3:10. ‘Pleasures’ in the N.T. use is stronger than our English word. It only occurs James 4:1; James 4:3 of lusts and adulteries, 2 Peter 2:13 of day-revels and debauchery, and Luke 8:14 of their ‘choking’ effect, along with carking care and riches.

living in malice and envy] ‘Malice’ is the ‘evil habit of mind’ which manifests itself in positive evil and harm-doing, see note on Titus 2:9 and Trench, N. T. Syn. § 11. It comes between a state of envy and the actual working of ill to a neighbour.

hateful, and hating one another] Vulg. ‘odibiles odientes invicem’; ‘hateful’ in the particular form of the Greek word here does not occur elsewhere in N.T., but is formed just as ‘abominable’ in Titus 1:16. The full sense is well seen in the compound ‘hateful to God’ (not as A.V. ‘haters of God’) Romans 1:30.

The whole verse seems an echo, in brief, of the fuller description of heathen life written ten years before in Romans 1:18-32. As in Titus 2:12, St Paul identifies himself with the Cretans in self-condemnation, and divine mercy; exemplifying the ‘meekness’ he inculcates.

4. The contrast is striking; God hated the sinners’ sins, and the sinners hated one another, but God loved all the sinners through it all, and at the right time let His ‘loving kindness’ ‘appear.’ Render: When the kindness of our Saviour God and his love toward man appeared. ‘Kindness’ is the word in Ephesians 2, the passage of which the present seems a reminiscence; there its colleague is the Pauline ‘grace,’ Titus 2:5; Titus 2:7-8. The proper force of the word is well given N. T. Syn. § 63 ‘Wine is chrestos which has been mellowed with age, Luke 5:39; Christ’s yoke is chrestos, as having nothing harsh or galling about it, Matthew 11:30.’ Jerome’s definition from the Stoics is quoted, ‘Benignitas est virtus sponte ad benefaciendum exposita.’ Abp Trench adds: ‘This chrestotes was so predominantly the character of Christ’s ministry that it is nothing wonderful to learn from Tertullian (Apol. 3) how ‘Christus’ became ‘Chrestus,’ and ‘Christiani’ ‘Chrestiani, on the lips of the heathen—with the undertone, it is true, of contempt.’ In N.T. usage the word is peculiar to St Paul. ‘Love toward man’—our ‘philanthropy’—occurs Acts 28:2, and the adverb Acts 27:3, ‘shewed us no common kindness,’ ‘treated Paul kindly.’ But St Paul, as with many other words, elevates it to a higher height than that of man’s kindness to man, and ‘philanthropy’ is thenceforth even in its ordinary sphere transfigured with the brightness of the character of God. The best Christian should be the best philanthropist.

God our Saviour] As before, so frequently, of the Father; while below the same title is given to the Son, Titus 3:6; as in chap. Titus 2:10-11 followed by 13.

5. not by works of righteousness] The exact grammatical form is rendered by not by virtue of works, works in righteousness which we did. We should read the neut. accus. of the relative with the best authorities, rather than the genitive here. Bp Wordsworth well explains the reason of the clause: that when those false teachers were asked what was their ground of hope of salvation, they would reply ‘The works wrought in righteousness which we did’; but St Paul would answer ‘God’s mercy.’

he saved us] Vulg. ‘salvos nos fecit.’ Compare the aorist tenses in Colossians 2:13-15. Bp Lightfoot thus brings out the force (Revision of N.T. p. 85): ‘St Paul regards this change from sin to righteousness, from bondage to freedom, from death to life, as summed up in one definite act of the past; potentially to ail men in our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, actually to each individual man when he accepts Christ, is baptized into Christ.’ ‘It is the definiteness, the absoluteness of this change, considered as a historical crisis, which forms the central idea of St Paul’s teaching, and which the aorist marks.’ See also note on 1 Timothy 2:4.

by the washing of regeneration] Properly through the washing or through the laver; the preposition expresses the channel or means through which; the ‘washing’ or ‘laver’ ‘of regeneration’ is evidently one phrase for the sacrament of Holy Baptism. The genitive marks the attribute or inseparable accompaniments,’ Winer § 30 2 b, who quotes Mark 1:4, ‘repentance-baptism.’ Cf. Colossians 1:22, ‘his flesh-body,’ i.e. His material, natural body, distinguished from the mystical body before mentioned. Cf. also ‘the fire of testing,’ Teaching of the Twelve Apostles xvi. 5.

Should we render here ‘washing’ or ‘laver’? It has been usual among English commentators as Wordsw., Alf., Conybeare, Ellicott, to render ‘laver,’ and to understand the baptismal font, on the ground that the Greek word ‘means always a vessel or pool in which washing takes place.’ So no doubt the form in tron properly signifies, as e.g. arotron a plough, alabastron, an ointment-bottle. But classical usage is in the plural ‘a bath,’ Hom. Il. xviii. 489, Æsch. Ag. 1080; in the sing, ‘the act of washing,’ Hes. Op. 755, ‘expiatory libations,’ Soph. El. 84, ‘water for washing,’Œd. Col. 1599; Aristoph. Lys. 378. The Septuagint usage is only in the sing., Jeremiah 31:25, ‘A man baptized from the death of sin, and again taking hold of it, what does he gain from his washing?’ Song of Solomon 4:2 ‘Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes that are newly shorn, which are come up from the washing.’ The N.T. usage is only in the sing., Ephesians 5:26, ‘having cleansed it (the Church) by the washing of water with the word,’ R.V., with margin ‘Gr. laver,’ and the present passage where R.V. gives ‘washing,’ with margin ‘Or, laver.’ According to R.V. rules this inconsistency neutralises its verdict. For in Ephesians 5:26 it is implied that ‘laver’ is more exact; in Tit. that ‘washing’ is more, and ‘laver’ less likely, as the meaning of the Greek. On the whole the classical usage, the A.V. and R.V. text, support the rendering ‘washing.’ As to the form of the word, the Greeks may have been at liberty to divert it from its proper meaning, having the kindred form loutêr for ‘a bath,’ which, according to analogy, should be ‘a bathing man.’ Somewhat similarly having astêr for ‘a star’ they used astron for ‘a cluster of stars.’

regeneration] ‘Palingenesia is one of the many words which the Gospel found, and, so to speak, glorified.’ Abp Trench, who admirably draws out the enlargement here, N. T. Syn. § 18. The word had been used by the Pythagoreans, in the doctrine of transmigration of souls, for their reappearance in new bodies; by the Stoics for the periodic renovation of the earth in spring; in Cicero it describes his restoration to his dignities and honours after his return from exile; in Josephus the restoration of the Jewish nation after the captivity. The word does not occur in the Septuagint; and in N.T. only here and Matthew 19:28. ‘In our Lord’s words there is evident reference to the new birth of the whole creation (Acts 3:21), which shall be when the Son of Man hereafter comes in His glory; while St Paul’s “washing of regeneration” has to do with the new birth not of the whole travailing creation, but of the single soul, which is now evermore finding place.… The palingenesia which Scripture proclaims begins with the microcosmus of single souls; but it does not end there; it does not cease its effectual working till it has embraced the whole macrocosmus of the universe.’

But if, as seems most consistent with the whole chapter, and with St Matthew’s grand aim to paint a present ‘kingdom of the heavens,’ the reference of Matthew 19:28 is to the Church, Catholic and Apostolic, then ‘regeneration’ in both passages refers to the same act and epoch, when our Lord having ‘overcome the sharpness of death’ opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers, and on the day of Pentecost 3000 souls said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ and were baptized by them ‘unto the remission of their sins,’ and ‘continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship.’ In our Lord’s words and in St Paul’s the setting up of this kingdom, the entrance into it, is life from the dead, a second birth; and John 3:3; John 3:5 ‘Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God; Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,’ (summed up in palingenesia Matthew 19:28) explains and is explained by Ephesians 5:25-26, ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it, that he might cleanse it by the washing of water with the word’ (summed up in palingenesia:, Titus 3:5).

and renewing of the Holy Ghost] R.V. keeps this rendering of A.V. which necessarily makes ‘renewing’ depend like ‘regeneration’ on ‘the washing’; giving in the margin as a good, but not so good, construction ‘and through renewing,’ where the government is carried back to the preposition. It is only a question of the naturalness of the order of words, and of the doctrine that ‘renewing’ or ‘renovation’ depends on Baptism being expressly stated or left to be inferred. The doctrine itself cannot but be true, as life must precede growth, and growth must depend upon life. Compare Ephesians 5:26, where the purpose of Christ giving Himself up for the Church is stated to be, first that He might cleanse it by the washing of water through the word (as above), and then that He might sanctify it, till there should be no spot nor blemish; and Romans 12:2, ‘Be ye transformed (present tense) by the renewal of your mind;’ see that the gradual restoration of the Divine image be ever going forward. No nobler commentary on the phrase has been written than the ancient ‘Veni Creator.’

6. which he shed on us abundantly] More closely in R.V. which he poured out upon us richly; the verb is the same, in the same tense, as in Acts 2:33, ‘he hath poured forth this’; the aorist there being used according to Greek idiom of what has just happened, here of God’s objective act once for all, in which all His successive giving was potentially included.

through Jesus Christ our Saviour] ‘As its channel and medium,’ Alford. ‘All the spiritual Blessings of the New birth, and of the New life, are represented as flowing down to us from and out of the one fountain and well-spring of the love of God the Father; and are all derived to us through God the Son, God and Man, Who is the sole channel of all grace to men; and are applied to us personally by the agency of God the Holy Ghost. All these Blessings come to us through the Incarnation of God the Son, Who took our nature and died for us, and washed us from our sins by His blood. And the Incarnation is, as it were, the point of contact at which the Channel of Filial Grace joins on to the Well-spring of Paternal Love. And the point of contact at which the living water of Grace, which flows from the Well-spring of Paternal Love through the Filial channel of Grace, is poured forth into our souls is in the laver of our New Birth in Baptism.’ Wordsworth.

7. being justified … be made heirs] The word ‘justifying’ and ‘justification’ occur 25 times in the great group of Epistles, written 10 years before this to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, whose subject is ‘Christ the Redeemer,’ ‘Christ for us.’ It has not been used in the next great group written five years before this, to the Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians, whose subject is ‘Christ the Life,’ ‘Christ in us,’ ‘Christ our Sanctification.’ ‘Righteousness,’ however, that right relation between God and man, the restoration to which is justification, occurs seven times against 50 times in the former group. So in Ephesians 5:26 (already quoted as parallel in form and sense to our present passage), ‘the cleansing’ is the justifying, and the ‘sanctifying’ follows, as here ‘being heirs’ follows. This verse then, in its two clauses, repeats, with reference to God the Son, what in Titus 3:5 was said with reference to God the Father as to the twofold saving mercy; just as in the former ‘Gospel’ passage, Titus 2:11-14, ‘renunciation’ and ‘obedience’ are both spoken of, first as the work of God the Father’s grace (11, 12), and then as the result of God the Son’s gift of Himself (14). The justification by God the Father’s grace—the regeneration—effected potentially once for all by Christ through His death, resurrection and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and appropriated individually by Faith (expressed or implied) in Baptism, is to be followed by a ‘life of heirship’ or ‘sanctification’; so the Latin translation of Theod. Mops. ‘ut heredes efficiamur,’ and the comment, ‘at segregavit nos in ditissimam quam nobis bonorum praestitit fruitionem,’—the third of the Baptismal Blessings, ‘inheritors of the kingdom of heaven,’ with a right and title to receive now ‘the fruits of the Spirit.’

according to the hope of eternal life] (1) In A.V. and R.V. it is implied that these words are to be taken together and ‘made heirs’ left absolute; then this last clause finds an eloquent expansion in Ephesians 5:27 (see above), and ‘glorification’ crowns ‘sanctification,’ as sanctification followed justification. (2) The R.V. margin gives ‘heirs, according to hope, of eternal life.’ in this case ‘eternal life’ must most fittingly be interpreted as usually in St John, and 1 Timothy 4:8; 1 Timothy 6:12; 1 Timothy 6:19, ‘the spiritual life that is and is to come;’ ‘according to hope,’ will be as Ephesians 4:4, ‘called in one hope of your calling,’ and 1 Timothy 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus our hope,’ where this life’s state of salvation must be included in the object of hope; and ‘justification’ and ‘sanctification’ will be the only two objects named of the Spirit’s outpouring. But the phrase in Titus 1:2, as there interpreted, favours (1).