Titus 3:7

that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Justified... The text is saying that God not only saves us by baptism and the resulting reception of the Holy Spirit, but that "his grace" justifies us by exactly the same means. As Zerr pointed out, "justification has many shades of meaning,"[20] but two of these meanings are predominant, "Justification" in the ultimate sense of being the grounds upon which the Father declares men to be righteous is grounded in the perfect faith and obedience of Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom sinners are justified by being united with, and actually incorporated into Christ's spiritual body, thus being, in fact, "Christ," and justified "as Christ." There is a secondary sense of justification, the one in view here, in which God cleanses from all past sins and receives the sinner into the body of the redeemed. Significantly, baptism here appears as the means used by God's grace in order to achieve man's justification and to make him an heir of eternal life. "Then and there, in and by baptism, and in and by the Spirit bestowed in baptism (we) actually became heirs of eternal life."[21] The bestowal of such high privilege and rich benefit is actual, genuine, real; but it is neither final nor irrevocable. That state will be given to Christians only "on that day." Another word with references to the two uses of "justification" is thus: (1) one is used in the temporary sense, the same being probational, and (2) the other is used in the eternal sense, being final. Of course, it is the first of these which is referred to in this verse.

How nearly incredible is the fact that there are some who do not believe what Paul said here; but this is not due to any inconsistency in what he wrote with reference to his other letters, or to anything else in the New Testament, being entirely due to the Lutheran heresy of salvation by "faith alone" which has blinded many of the modern Protestant scholars and has all but ruined Protestant Christianity. We shall not note all of the objections that have been raised against the interpretation followed here, but we shall make an exception for that voiced by Ward: "Some of the bloodiest dictators and some of the most wicked men have been baptized people."[22] This is no valid objection because it applies equally to those "who believed on" the Lord Jesus Christ, and then went on to crucify him (John 12:42). The answer lies in the probationary nature of the justification that comes as a result of the new birth of "water and of the Spirit." Angels fell, and Judas was, at first, a faithful apostle.

[20] E. M. Zerr, Bible Commentary (Marion, Indiana: Cogdill Foundation, 1954), p. 205.

[21] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 937.

[22] Ronald A. Ward, Commentary on 1,2Timothy and Titus (Waco, Texas: Word Books, Publisher, 1974), p. 271.