Titus 1:1–5

"Bondman of God" is unusual. In the letter to the Romans Paul calls himself "bondman of Jesus Christ." He does the same in the letter to the Philippians, where he joins Timothy with himself. Only here is it "bondman of God and apostle of Jesus Christ." No Christian should doubt that this relationship to God fits this letter in a special way.

To be an overseer is a good work. But Titus was called, among other things, to appoint overseers: clearly a far more delicate and responsible service. Self-importance can slip in here, as it often has even with excellent men. Paul had authorised and directed Titus in that high service. So he begins with that firm statement: "Paul, bondman of God." All was worthless if the will of God was not done.

Two of the ablest recent commentators have dropped "according to" and adopted "for." But that loses the special force of the scripture before us... People tend to treat Christianity as a continuation of Judaism, and more or less an improvement on it. But the whole system of legal rules and ceremonies has come to its end; Christ had wiped it out and taken it away, nailing it to the cross... It is now a question of what God has done and given, as revealed in the person of Christ, and so of faith on the part of God's elect. The elect nation is no longer the platform of His ways.

So faith was found, not in the confession of the Jews, but in the elect brought by grace to the knowledge of the truth. It was the faith of the elect: this is an important truth, and it is what marks out faith in the world. Others may indeed adopt it as a system; but faith is in itself the faith of the elect.

The sovereignty of God comes before us here. Long before God created Adam, or the corrupt sons of Japheth disgraced the island of Crete, God had chosen His own. He has chosen certain people for life, and He did it in His own absolute and unsearchable counsel.

The knowledge of the truth which is "after godliness" goes with this faith. The word should not be translated "acknowledging," but "full knowledge." It makes the previous phrase clearer, for this truth puts everything in its place and brings the soul into contact with God. When someone knows God like this, true piety follows. That is very different from making a show of being good.

We must not hide the faith of God's elect away. We must own it before men and before the enemy, as well as learn it from God. We must confess it without compromise, no matter what the difficulty. We must never give up the acknowledgment of the truth — not just the belief of it.

Notice too that godliness marks the truth. Here is a very good test, and you can use it in either direction. People press certain things on us as the very truth of God. We may not be up to the task of analysing them, comparing them with Scripture and proving them false. Yet we can see without difficulty that accepting them as truth leads to throwing off godliness. That is enough. These things are not the truth of God.

These two, truth and godliness, belong together. If someone gives up the truth or fails to hold it, godliness goes too. The truth must show itself in godliness.

I understand that before the ages of time refers to that eternal purpose which was in the secret of God's mind, or to which He was committed, unknown to the creature. It was there before God brought any revealed age into existence, and to Him there is no time. … God has given many promises in time, to encourage His people on their way. But this was a counsel and promise before any of the ages in which His government is displayed on earth.

If the purpose itself was eternal, the promise given to us is no doubt in the words of God to the woman in the Garden of Eden, that her seed would crush the serpent's head. God gave that promise before He sent man out of the garden to be tested under His different ways of dealing with him. These ages clearly only began in connection with man estranged from God.

It is almost impossible for man, who is naturally false, to take in the idea of absolute truthfulness. … The Cretans were strongly marked by this devilish characteristic; they were "always liars." They had been raised in an atmosphere of falsehood, and they had never met truth until the gospel came to them. … It was a change for men who until then had dealt only with liars, now to have to do with One to whom lying was an impossibility.

In Titus 1 the Holy Spirit adds, about the promise of eternal life, that the One who made the promise could not fail to carry it out for the elect, for He says, God "cannot lie."

This does not in any way deny that the believer now has eternal life as a living reality in his soul. But in the future he will also enter into those outward circumstances that are vibrant with the same life. There will be nothing around him then that is subject to death and decay.

Eternal life is truly given to the believer now, and this revelation is by no means uncommon in our apostle's writings. John's writings make its present possession stand out, whether the Gospel or his First Epistle. But Paul often treats it according to its future display. … He looks on to life in glory.

The counsel of God — what was in God's mind connecting us with Christ, and existed before the world did — came out in the gospel, and never came out until after Christ came and died and made atonement.

Between the promise and the realisation of eternal life there has been the proclamation of it in the testimony of God. In that testimony the Apostle Paul had a special part, as minister of the Gospel and minister of the church.

Far from God giving up His glorious counsels, the truth of eternal life comes out far more fully in the decay of Christian profession. A sad flood of evils had swept over Christendom. That was just the moment when the Holy Spirit drew attention to something more than the grace of God saving sinners and the faithfulness of God keeping His own children. He pointed to the character of the life that was their portion in Christ.

There was a certain time chosen by God for making His mind known — when all man's failure had been exposed, his history run out, and his utter ruin proved. Crete was without doubt a glaring example of this. Paul had the great work of preaching the word committed to him by our Saviour-God.

It was God's counsel before the foundation of the world, but it was never brought out until the cross... All this glorious purpose, glorious for us and for God, was never brought out — never hinted at — until Christ laid a righteous ground for it in the cross. Then God brought it out and said, "That is what I am going to do."

It was there before the world began, no doubt. But at the proper time God manifested His word through the preaching. This lets us see the very special place Christianity has in the ways of God. We do not often notice a very striking and obvious fact. For by far the largest part of this world's history, no such thing as preaching was known. We are so used to thinking of preaching that we do not always weigh what it means, or what light it casts on the character of God.

Verse 2 of our chapter looks on into a coming eternity, when the promise made in a past eternity will be fulfilled. Verse 3 speaks of the present, in which God is making His word known through preaching... It would be good if everyone who shares in this great work today felt its dignity and importance deeply. It will go badly for us if we make the preaching a platform for showing off our own cleverness or importance! It is for the manifestation of the word of God.

The truth shown in the word has come to us through the "preaching" which God specially committed to the apostle, with all His authority, for the Gentiles. As we know, that preaching was to continue through "faithful men, who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2).

We now see that eternal life only in the word of God. What God has made known "at the proper time" is of course the full truth of Christianity, preached publicly and specially entrusted to Paul. "The command of God our Saviour" had decided this — not any special ability or energy on Paul's part.

"God our Saviour" is a wonderful title. It is found only in the letters to Timothy and Titus. That He should Himself seek to save rebels against His own majesty is a marvel indeed... He was under no obligation to save any of His rebellious creatures. He might have declared Himself "God our Judge"... "God our Saviour" is not so familiar a thought to some as "Jesus our Saviour." The popular idea is a severe God and a gracious Jesus... "God our Saviour" means that the very One we have sinned against has Himself, in His great love, provided everything His throne required. Who would distrust such a God?

It is even more striking how the term Saviour is applied to both God and the Lord Jesus in such a way as to assure us that Jesus is God. In Titus 1 it is "God our Saviour" in verse 3 and "Christ our Saviour" in verse 4. In Titus 3 it is "God our Saviour" in verse 4 and "Christ our Saviour" in verse 6. In Titus 2 it is "our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" in verse 13.

A Greek convert, Paul's "own son after the common faith." The apostle took him to Jerusalem, but because he was a Greek he was not circumcised. Gal. 2:1-3. Paul describes him to the Corinthian church as "my partner and fellow-helper" on their behalf.

So the apostle gives Titus the same title he gave Timothy in his first letter. There it is simply "in faith"; here it is "according to common faith." Both men believed the same truth of Christ — Paul the Jew and Titus the Gentile. There is not only one body, the church; there is also a faith shared by all Christians. The highest in spiritual place, power and authority shares it with the least believer, even a Scythian or a slave, who calls on the same Lord — the Lord who is rich in grace toward all who call on His name.

He is writing to Titus, his true child, as he says — his child just as Timothy was, his child in the faith, since God used him to pass that faith on... Each soul must stand before God for itself. We are not saved in a crowd; we are saved one by one. And all through life, the more simply we deal with God Himself, for ourselves, as if no one else existed, the more fit we will be for fellowship with others.

Paul calls Titus his "own child after the common faith," because Titus was converted through him. He wishes him grace — the favour of God that lifts a person above all circumstances. Mercy — God's compassion while he is in those circumstances. And peace — the calm of soul to carry him through them.

He wishes the believers in Rome, as in all his letters, grace and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ... When he writes to one person, something else comes in: that person's own weakness and frailty. So the writers of Scripture add "mercy" when they write to a single person. (See the letters to Timothy and Titus, and the Second Letter of John.)

It is hard, though, to resist the weight of the manuscript evidence. The conclusion would be that the apostle's heart went out to desire "mercy" for Timothy in particular, while he was content to wish Titus "grace and peace," as he usually did when writing to believers at large... But if "mercy" is not stated here, "grace" implies it. Grace is the spring from which mercy flows, and peace is the result always to be desired.

God saves us to make us His heirs, and it is striking how this letter presents Him as Saviour. It is even more striking that the letter gives the title Saviour to both God and the Lord Jesus, in a way that assures us Jesus is God. In Titus 1, it is "God our Saviour" in verse 3, and "Christ our Saviour" in verse 4. In Titus 3, it is "God our Saviour" in verse 4, and "Christ our Saviour" in verse 6. In Titus 2, it is "our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" in verse 13.

Here, in Titus, the apostle says plainly that he had left him in Crete to set in order things that were still lacking, and to establish elders in every city... The subject of this book is the walk that suits Christians, in keeping order in their relationships with each other. It is also the great principles on which this walk is founded.

The apostle's stay was short, so some things were still lacking that it could not complete. There was also the need to appoint elders, and that regularly came after the saints were gathered — sometimes long after. This implies that several cities, perhaps many, had assemblies in them, and that elders were appointed in each one later... we know from elsewhere in the New Testament that more than one elder in any given assembly was the rule, and so no doubt it was at Crete.

Then the apostle states the qualifications needed for anyone who would fill such an office. Here we see that the office of elder and the office of overseer are the same. (Compare verse 5 with verse 7.) The term elder was the title of respect; the term overseer was the one that described the work.

The apostle had committed this task to the proven faithfulness of Titus. He gave Titus his own authority by word of mouth and here in writing. So to reject Titus was to reject the apostle, and therefore the Lord who had sent him. Authority in the assembly of God is a serious thing — a thing that comes from God Himself. It can be exercised through influence by the gift of God, and by officeholders, when God establishes them through instruments He has chosen and sent for this purpose.

Notice a matter of the greatest importance. The apostle does not specify a particular gift as needed for these local charges. Scripture takes marked care to guard against that dangerous confusion, which soon marked Christendom and formed the separation of clergy from laity... A gift and a charge may well be combined in the same person. But in themselves, and for most people who have only one of the two, they are completely different. The gift was one given by Christ to the church, from the greatest to the least, without any human involvement. The charge of "elders" or "overseers" needed more than fitness. It also needed choice or appointment by a competent authority that Scripture defines.

Scripture makes no provision for such appointments to continue. We can only see them as a way of establishing the church in its earliest state. Of course, there is no authority now for appointing elders. Yet the saints should still recognise men with the qualifications seen here and in 1 Timothy, valuing their wisdom and experience. Then order can be kept easily, without official appointment.