Commentary on Titus 3:4-7

Everything has changed! With the breaking of Mary’s water and the infant Jesus taking his first breath, glorious light floods the plains where shepherds keep their watch. Triumphant declaration upends the monotony on this world-altering night as a gospel for all people heralds the arrival of Christ the Lord (Luke 2:8–11), who signals the in-breaking of divine peace (verse 14). 

Everything has changed! Now, with the washing of new beginnings and the refreshing that comes from the Breath of God (the Holy Spirit, Titus 3:5), our chaotic world has been breached by the bursting-out of God’s “generosity [chrēstotēs] and human-loving goodness [philanthrōpia]” (verse 4). This is the eagerly anticipated life “promised before the ages began” (1:2), which is the very “life of the age to come” (zōēs aiōnios, 3:7; 1:2)! 

Mary coddles her firstborn, carefully enveloping him, secure enough for him to settle into a nap nestled in the cradle of the manger (Luke 2:7). Across the fields, this hush of naptime is interrupted by the thundering applause of heavenly hosts and trumpeted pronouncements by angels regarding God’s peace for those in whom God is delightedly pleased (Luke 2:13–14). 

God has poured out the very divine Spirit who carries us along, comforting and reassuring us of God’s rich presence surrounding our lives (Titus 2:6). The delivery of God’s gracious favor, lavished upon those whom a meritocracy would account as destitute, has granted a status of vindication and bestowed an inheritance underwritten by divine life (verse 7). 

A new way of seeing the world has been granted by God’s messengers. The shepherds could “see this thing that [had] taken place, which the Lord [had] made known” (Luke 2:15; see also verse 20) because God’s angelic messengers had declared it to them. Likewise, Mary listens intently to the story relayed by the shepherds. True to her form as both God’s faithful servant (1:38) and a doting mother, she “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (2:19; see also 1:29; 2:51). Likewise, these shepherds themselves continued to respond by glorifying and praising God as the proper response to what the angels had announced to them (2:20).

A faithful reader of Paul’s letter receives this hopeful message as one promised before the ages, proclaimed by Christ’s entrusted emissary (Titus 1:1–4), and absorbed by his delegate to be dependably transmitted to the gathered community (2:1, 15). The way God’s people talk should be an appropriate response to the saving message we have received. Our activities and habits should match the newness of life and the enabling nourishment of the gifted Holy Spirit. 

Just as the priest Zechariah could extol the light “appearing [epiphanai] upon those perched in darkness, even in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace” (Luke 1:79), so Paul here applauds God our Savior now that God’s “goodness and lovingkindness appeared [epephanē]” (Titus 3:4; see also 2:11; epiphaneia in 2:13). As a proper response to the appearance of our Savior, we gather and then we go out, “being made right by God’s grace and having become beneficiaries according to hope for the life of the age to come” (3:7).

The epiphany of the Christ-child came into a world under Caesar’s regime. This period is marked by a census, a call to submit names and numbers for the enhancement of the imperial order (Luke 2:1–2). It is the dark side of this foreign, occupying administration that will lead to the miscarriage of justice under the prefect Pontius Pilate as Jesus is crucified as “King of the Jews” (Luke 23:38). 

As true as this placard was, it mockingly confirms what Luke’s audience knows from Jesus’ noble lineage from the household of David (2:4). His royalty is further confirmed by the announcement of Gabriel to Mary that her child would inherit “the throne of his ancestor David” (1:32) as he is destined to rule over Israel and inaugurate an everlasting kingdom (verse 33). These two kingdoms were destined for fateful confrontation, having rival visions of peace and opposing systems of salvation. 

The clash of these kingdoms is also experienced among those receiving the salvation of God on the island of Crete, whose condition can be described as “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing [their] days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another” (Titus 2:3). And yet, the conflict does not have to be settled by the terms of this disturbing world order. 

The inhabitants of God’s household are called to “be subject” to those who are administering governance (3:1), and to practice life-giving speech habits, being “gentle and showing every courtesy to everyone” (3:2). This is precisely contrary to their life before they were rescued, washed, and given a new start from their previous destructive habits and hostile dispositions (3:3, 5). 

The newness is identified by being “not warlike” (amachos) but “conciliatory” (epiekēs), and by “showing all manner of gentleness [praytēs] toward everybody” (3:2). The believing community may continue to operate in this age (2:12), but they will conduct themselves according to the ethos of a different age defined by divine kindness and hospitable love for others. The distinction from the ways of the old regime comes in a mold that is shaped by God’s own “goodness and loving kindness” (3:4), demonstrated by the great God and Savior who has appeared in the person of Christ Jesus and exhibited in the communal culture now proclaimed by God’s emissary and delivered to his delegate (1:1, 3–5). 

What was true on the night Jesus entered our world must be made true and given witness by the community that bears Christ’s name. If this community can claim to be those who “wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2:13)—that is, those who are defined by what Christ has done and who live into the future that Christ is sure to bring—then its witness can only be true by embodying the same way of life as Jesus himself lived. 

Identified as heirs (3:7), even “joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), we must speak and interact and embrace the ways that Jesus himself did in his prophetic ministry to the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed (see Luke 4:18–19; see also Isaiah 61:2; 58:6). Just as Jesus was empowered in his ministry by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:14, 18), so he poured out this same Spirit upon the community of his followers (Acts 1:5, 8; 2:4, 33; Titus 3:6). Let us celebrate this Christmas by imitating our Savior and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit with graciousness. Everything has changed!