Titus 1:2

‘In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal,’

And God’s elect, those who have come to a knowledge of God’s truth are ‘in hope of eternal life’. This is not a wishful hope, but a certain hope, like the hope that fills a child’s heart as the vehicle in which it is travelling is almost in sight of the treat in store. It knows that it is about to happen. It refers to our confident expectation of full spiritual, everlasting life under God’s eternal Kingly Rule in the new heavens and the new earth. Through Christ we already have eternal life if we are His (John 5:24; 1 John 5:13), the new life that throbs in our hearts and transforms our lives (Titus 3:5; 2 Corinthians 5:17), but in the future we will enjoy it in overwhelming measure.

‘Which God, who cannot lie, (is free from all falsehood), promised before times eternal.’ And this life was promised by the God Who cannot lie, in a promise made before ‘the times of the ages’, in other words before the world began. (See Ephesians 1:3-14; Romans 8:28-30; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2). This was the message that was entrusted to Paul under God’s command (Titus 1:3), and has been committed to Titus to pass on to others. Thus the hope is a hope both of Paul and of the elect.

These reminders were an important part of his bolstering of the faith of those who had not themselves seen with their own eyes the risen Jesus Christ, especially in view of the challenging times. He was not giving Titus new teaching, he was reminding him of the vision that they both shared.