Titus 1:1

Apostolic Title and Address, Titus 1:1-4.

1. Paul See note on 1 Timothy 1:1.

Servant of God… apostle of… Christ An antithesis of the general against the special. He is God’s servant, as a generality, shared with all good men; but apostle of Christ is his rare specialty, shared with a choice very few. The and of the English translation, which obscures the antithesis, should be but. The whole passage, after this divine epithet apostle, to the end of Titus 1:3, is an expansion of the great import of that epithet; an assertion of the divinity of Paul’s office, as based upon the divinity of the gospel system, with which it accords, and of which it is an integral part. It takes the whole three verses to fully express Paul’s style and prerogative as apostle, preparatory to his to Titus, mine own son. Even then it is but a summary of his self-assertion in Part First of 1 Timothy, as shown in our Plan, vol. iv, p. 411. Hence this is an official letter a certificate and a diploma, which apostolically authenticates Titus to the Churches of Crete, while it warns him to stand firmly and exclusively upon the high apostolic platform as against surrounding errorists.

According to See notes on this phrase Ephesians 1:9 and Romans 16:25-27. In that passage of Ephesians the Greek κατα , according to, occurs five times, as here four times an occult proof that Paul was author of both; so occult, indeed, as to have escaped the critical commentators. We are, also, warned thereby from giving different meanings to the words in the different parts of this passage. The apostleship, as an institute, accords with the whole Gospel as a doctrine and a plan. Both, fitting to each other, form the divine system. This apostleship accords with the faith of God’s elect, as being embraced therein in the belief of all the faithful. Hence the substitution by Alford (following Huther) of for, instead of according to, is not only unjustified by the Greek, but contrary to Paul’s special use of the word κατα , and unrequired by the current of this passage.

The faith of God’s elect Namely, that faith by which they become and stay the chosen of God harmonizes with and sustains the apotolate; and if any professed faith rejects it, as does the prevalent Jewish fabulism; it is not the faith of God’s elect. And hence the apostolate of St. Paul accords with the genuine acknowledging of the truth which is after ( κατα , according to) godliness. The meaning is not (as Wiesinger, Huther, Alford, and others) that the apostolate is “for,” that is, conducive to, the acknowledging, but that the apostolate, and a right acknowledging, correspond and are firmly bound together. He who questions the apostolate does not acknowledge the truth.

According to Another κατα , which all are obliged to render rightly. The apostleship accords with just that truth which accords with godliness, or piety. Godliness is a rectitude of heart and faith in communion with God, and under control of the Divine. Yet the divine name does not enter into the Greek word, which word is compounded of ευ , ( right,) and σεβεω , ( worship,) and signifies true devotion, or piety. The words of Chrysostom, approvingly quoted by Huther, do not hit the mark: “Other truth there is which is not according to godliness, as truth of agriculture or trade.” St. Paul’s phrase is not opposed to any secular truths, but only to the pretended truths, though real falsehoods, of Gnosticism and fallen Judaism, with which both Timothy and Titus were to contend in their respective charges. For throughout this entire paragraph of St. Paul’s self-assertion, the opposition of the Ephesian and Cretan gainsayers is silently presupposed. His office is in accordance with God’s truth; their teaching is in accordance with a conscience defiled. Titus 1:15.

The truth which is after godliness It must be emphatically noticed that this accordance and identification of truth with rectitude is St. Paul’s leading test of his true Christianity. To stay Christian, as he holds Christianity, is to stay (Titus 1:8) sober, just, holy, temperate; to leave Christianity and relapse into heathenism, or run into Gnosticism, is to become like the Cretans, (Titus 1:12,) or like the reprobate, (Titus 1:16.) It is, therefore, not of mere theoretic or doctrinal truth, but it is of reformatory, saving, divine truth truth which is after godliness that he is, and Titus in his place must be, the unflinching champion at Crete. He purposes to raise Crete into a true Christian civilization through his Gospel and organized Church.