Titus 2:13 - Exposition

The for that, A.V.; appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior for the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior, A.V. Looking for ( προσδεχόμενοι ); the word commonly applied to waiting for the kingdom of God ( Mark 15:43 ; Luke 2:25 , Luke 2:38 ; Luke 12:36 ; Luke 23:1-56 . 51; Jud 21). The blessed hope. The hope here means the thing hoped for, as in Acts 24:14 (where both the subjective hope and the thing hoped for are included); Galatians 5:5 ; Colossians 1:5 (comp. too Romans 8:24 , Romans 8:25 ). Here the hope is called emphatically "the blessed hope," the hope of Christ's second coming in glory, that hope which is the joy and life, the strength and comfort, of every Christian soul. This is the only place in the New Testament where μακάριος is applied to an object which does not itself enjoy the blessing, but is a source of blessing to others. Of the fifty passages where it occurs it is applied in forty-three to persons, twice to God, three times to parts of the body (the Virgin's womb, and the eyes and ears of those who saw and heard Christ), once impersonally ("It is more blessed to give," etc., Acts 20:35 ), and once, in this passage, to the hope. And appearing of the glory. In construing this clause, as well as the following, the same difficulty occurs. There is only one article to the two subjects. The question arises—Can two different subjects stand under one article? Huther affirms that they can, and refers for proof to Buttman and Wince; and, indeed, it is impossible to treat "the hope" and the "appearing" as one subject. Accepting this, the clause before us should be rendered, Looking for the blessed hope, and the appearing of the glory of the great God. This is a description of the second coming of the Lord, of whom it is expressly said that he will "come in the glory of his Father". The appearing of Christ will be the appearing of the glory of the great God, not the appearing of God the Father, to whom the term ἐπιφανεία is never applied, but of the Son, who is the Brightness of his Father's glory. Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. No doubt the Greek words can be so rendered, and perhaps (grammatically) most naturally, as e.g. in 2 Peter 1:11 , where we read, "The kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ;" and so 2 Peter 3:18 . But, on the other hand, according to what is said above, they need not be so rendered. "The great God" and "our Savior Jesus Christ" may be two separate subjects, as "the blessed hope" and "appearing of the glory" are. Anti we have to inquire, from the usual language of Scripture, which of the two is most probable. Alford, in a long note, shows that σωτὴρ is often used without the article ( 1 Timothy 1:1 ; 1 Timothy 4:10 ; Philippians 3:20 ); that in analogous sentences: where κύριος is used as our Lord's title, an exactly similar construction to that in the text is employed, as 2 Thessalonians 1:12 ; 2 Peter 1:1 ; 2 Corinthians 1:2 ; Galatians 1:3 ; Ephesians 1:2 ; Ephesians 6:23 , etc. He also observes, after Wince, that the insertion of ἡμῶν after σωτῆρος is an additional reason for the omission of the article before σωτῆρος , as in Luke 1:78 ; Romans 1:7 ; 1 Corinthians 1:3 , and elsewhere; and that the epithet μεγάλου prefixed to θεοῦ makes it still more difficult to connect θεοῦ with σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἰησοῦ ξριστοῦ ; and lastly, he compares this passage with 1 Timothy 2:3 , 1 Timothy 2:5 , 1 Timothy 2:6 , and thinks the conclusion inevitable that the apostle, writing two sentences so closely corresponding—written, it may be added, so near to one another in time—would have had in view, in both passages, the same distinction of persons which is so strongly marked in 1 Timothy 3:3 , 1 Timothy 3:5 . On these grounds he pronounces against the rendering which is adopted by the Revised Version. Huther's conclusion is the same: partly from the grammatical possibility of two subjects (here θεοῦ and ἰησοῦ ξριστοῦ ) having only one article, which leaves the question of whether there are here one or two subjects to be decided on other grounds than simple grammar; and partly and chiefly from the double consideration that