Titus 1:2

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.