Titus 2:14

14. who gave himself for us] Dr Reynolds well gives the connexion ‘who—in this lofty and august majesty, and because He was possessed of it—delivered up Himself—His whole unique personality—on our behalf.’

that he might redeem us] By the payment of a ransom price; see note 1Ti_2:6 for the origin of this image and its place among the metaphors of the Atonement. Compare Norris, Rudiments of Theology, pp. 168, 169, 173, 216. St Peter, 1Pe_1:18, calls the slavery, from which ‘ye were redeemed,’ ‘your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers’—writing to the Jewish Christians, who as Jews had had at least a certain moral standard. St Paul, thinking of the Cretans and their sunken state of morals, defines the slavery as all iniquity, a word which St Peter keeps for ‘the lascivious life of the wicked’ by which righteous Lot was sore distressed. Compare 1Ti_1:9. Rom_2:14-15 describes that ‘moral law of nature,’ the breaches of which make the ‘iniquity’ of Rome, and Ephesus, and Crete, and England, irrespective of the more defined written law.

and purify unto himself a peculiar people] ‘Purify’ is the word constantly used of Christ in the days of His flesh ‘cleansing’ the lepers. Cf. Mat_8:3. His object in His great gift of Himself was that He might say to leprous souls ‘I will, be thou cleansed.’

a peculiar people] ‘Peculiar’ in its old sense from ‘peculium,’ the property which a son or slave was allowed to possess as his own, cf. Exo_19:5. ‘Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all peoples.’ So Deu_7:6, where the Septuagint has the same Greek word. ‘But the Percies affirmying them to be their owne propre prisoners and their peculiar praies, and to deliver them utterly denayed.’ Hall, Hen. IV., fol. 19 b. Bible Word-Book, p. 454.

The Greek word means ‘one who remains over to me,’ ‘my acquisition,’ and so the parallel phrase 1Pe_2:9, ‘a people for a possession,’ interprets it. Vulg. ‘acceptabilis,’ and so Theod. Mops. Latin Text, but the Latin commentary, shewing Theodore’s own interpretation, far better ‘ut proprium sibi populum adquireret.’ For a full account of the word see Bp Lightfoot, Revision of the N. T., p. 234 sq. ‘People’ is itself the proper word for the chosen, select, people; in the original phrase in O. T. therefore the Israelites, now the Church Catholic.

zealous of good works] The force of this word can be seen in Luk_6:15, ‘Simon who was called the Zealot,’ Act_21:20, ‘and they are all zealous for the law, Act_22:3, ‘being zealous for God, even as ye all are this day;’ what the ‘Zealot’ party which set itself up for extra loyalty and strictness to the Law as a nationalist badge was to the nation at large; what the Jewish Christians were to their better instructed Gentile brethren, and Jews generally to Christians, in respect of the old ritual observances: this Christ would have His Church be to the rest of the world in respect of good works shining before men, ‘zealots of goodness, charged with the genius of goodness—the passion for godliness:’ Dr Reynolds. So St Peter again has the word ‘who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealots of goodness?’ 1Pe_3:13. But may we not also say here is the true ‘enthusiasm of humanity,’ the very purpose, mark, of the Incarnation and Atonement; that we may be zealots of philanthropy, charged with the genius of social regeneration, the passion for practical piety? This aim and scope of the Saviour’s work makes the ‘Faithful saying’ of the next chapter Tit_3:8 rise plainly to the level of the other ‘Faithful sayings’ of 1 Tim. and 2 Tim.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deuteronomy

GOD’S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN

Deu 32:9 - Tit 2:14.

I choose these two texts because they together present us with the other side of the thought to that which I have elsewhere considered, that man’s true treasure is in God. That great axiom of the religious consciousness, which pervades the whole of Scripture, is rapturously expressed in many a psalm, and never more assuredly than in that one which struggles up from the miry clay in which the Psalmist’s ‘steps had well-nigh slipped’ and soars and sings thus: ‘The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; Thou maintainest my lot,’ ‘The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.’

You observe the correspondence between these words and those of my first text: ‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ The correspondence in the original is not quite so marked as it is in our Authorised Version, but still the idea in the two passages is the same. Now it is plain that persons can possess persons only by love, sympathy, and communion. From that it follows that the possession must be mutual; or, in other words, that only he can say ‘Thou art mine’ who can say ‘I am Thine.’ And so to possess God, and to be possessed by God, are but two ways of putting the same fact. ‘The Lord is the portion of His people, and the Lord’s portion is His people,’ are only two ways of stating the same truth.

Then my second text clearly quotes the well-known utterance that lies at the foundation of the national life of Israel: ‘Ye shall be unto Me a peculiar treasure above all people,’ and claims that privilege, like all Israel’s privileges, for the Christian Church. In like manner Peter {1Pe 2:9} quotes the same words, ‘a peculiar people,’ as properly applying to Christians. I need scarcely remind you that ‘peculiar’ here is used in its proper original sense of belonging to, or, as the Revised Version gives it, ‘a people for God’s own possession’ and has no trace of the modern signification of ‘singular.’ Similarly we find Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians giving both sides of the idea of the inheritance in intentional juxtaposition, when he speaks {Eph 1:14} of the ‘earnest of our inheritance . . . unto the redemption of God’s own possession.’ In the words before us we have the same idea; and this text besides tells us how Christ, the Revealer of God, wins men for Himself, and what manner of men they must be whom He counts as His.

Therefore there are, as I take it, three things to be spoken about now. First, God has a special ownership in some people. Second, God owns these people because He has given Himself to them. Third, God possesses, and is possessed by, His inheritance, that He may give and receive services of love. Or, in briefer words, I have to speak about this wonderful thought of a special divine ownership, what it rests upon, and what it involves.

I. God has special ownership in some people.

‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ Put side by side with those other words of the Old Testament: ‘All souls are Mine,’ or the utterance of the 100th Psalm rightly translated: ‘It is He that hath made us, and to Him we belong.’ There is a right of absolute and utter ownership and possession inherent in the very relation of Creator and creature; so that the being made is wholly and altogether at the disposal, and is the property, of Him that makes him.

But is that enough for God’s heart? Is that worth calling ownership at all? An arbitrary tyrant in an unconstitutional kingdom, or a slave-owner, may have the most absolute right of property over his subject or his slave; may have the right of entire disposal of all his industry, of the profit of all his labour; may be able to do anything he likes with him, may have the power of life and death; but such ownership is only of the husk and case of a man: the man himself may be free, and may smile at the claim of possession. ‘They may ‘own’ the body, and after that have no more than they can do.’ That kind of authority and ownership, absolute and utter, to the point of death, may satisfy a tyrant or a slave-driver, it does not satisfy the loving heart of God. It is not real possession at all. In what sense did Nero own Paul when he shut him up in prison, and cut his head off? Does the slave-owner own the man whom he whips within an inch of his life, and who dare not do anything without his permission? Does God, in any sense that corresponds with the longing of infinite love, own the men that reluctantly obey Him, and are simply, as it were, tools in His hands? He covets and longs for a deeper relationship and tenderer ties, and though all creatures are His, and all men are His servants and His possession, yet, like certain regiments in our own British army, there are some who have the right to bear in a special manner on their uniform and on their banners the emblazonment, ‘The King’s Own.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’

Well, then, the next thought is that the special relationship of possession is constituted by mutual love. I said at the beginning of these remarks that as concerns men’s relations, the only real possession is through love, sympathy, and communion, and that that must necessarily be mutual. We have a perfect right to apply the human analogy here; in fact, we are bound to do it if we would rightly understand such words as those of my text; and it just leads us to this, that the one thing whereby God reckons that He possesses a man at all is when His love falls upon that man’s heart and soaks into it, and when there springs up in the heart a corresponding emotion and affection. The men who welcome the divine love that goes through the whole world, seeking such to worship it, and to trust it, and to become its own; and who therefore lovingly yield to the loving divine will, and take it for their law-these are the men whom He regards as His ‘portion’ and ‘the lot of His inheritance.’ So that God is mine, and that ‘I am God’s,’ are two ends of one truth; ‘I possess Him,’ and ‘I am possessed by Him,’ are but the statement of one fact expressed from two points of view. In the one case you look upon it from above, in the other case you look upon it from beneath. All the sweet commerce of mutual surrender and possession which makes the joy of our hearts, in friendship and in domestic life, we have the right to lift up into this loftier region, and find in it the last teaching of what makes the special bond of mutual possession between God and man.

And deep words of Scripture point in that direction. Those parables of our Lord’s: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, in their infinite beauty, whilst they contain a great deal besides this, do contain this in their several ways; the money, the animal, the man belong to the woman of the house, to the shepherd, to the father. Each is ‘lost’ in a different fashion, but the most clear revelation is given in the last parable of the three, which explains the other two. The son was ‘lost’ when he did not love the father; and he was ‘found’ by the father when he returned the yearning of the father’s heart.

And so, dear brethren, it ever is; the one thing that knits men to God is that the silken cord of love let down from Heaven should by our own hand be wrapped round our own hearts, and then we are united to Him. We are His and He is ours by the double action of His love manifested by Him, and His love received by us.

Now there is nothing in all that of favouritism. The declaration that there are people who have a special relationship to the divine heart may be so stated as to have a very ugly look, and it often has been so stated as to be nothing more than self-complacent Pharisaism, which values a privilege principally because its possession is an insult to somebody else that has it not.

There has been plenty of Christianity of that sort in the world, but there is nothing of it in the thoughts of these texts rightly looked at. There is only this: it cannot but be that men who yield to God and love Him, and try to live near Him and to do righteousness, are His in a manner that those who steel themselves against Him and turn away from Him are not. Whilst all creatures have a place in His heart, and are flooded with His benefits, and get as much of Him as they can hold, the men who recognise the source of their blessing, and turn to it with grateful hearts, are nearer Him than those that do not do so. Let us take care, lest for the sake of seeming to preserve the impartiality of His love, we have destroyed all in Him that makes His love worth having. If to Him the good and the bad, the men who fear Him and the men who fear Him not, are equally satisfactory, and, in the same manner, the objects of an equal love, then He is not a God that has pleasure in righteousness; and if He is not a God that ‘has pleasure in righteousness,’ He is not a God for us to trust to. We are not giving countenance to the notion that God has any step-children, any petted members of His family, when we cleave to this-they that have welcomed His love into their hearts are nearer to Him than those that have closed the door against it.

And there is one more point here about this matter of ownership on which I dwell for a moment, namely, that this conception of certain men being in a special sense God’s possession and inheritance means also that He has a special delight in, and lofty appreciation of, them. All this material creation exists for the sake of growing good men and women. That is the use of the things that are seen and temporal; they are like greenhouses built for the great Gardener’s use in striking and furthering the growth of His plants; and when He has got the plants He has got what He wanted, and you may pull the greenhouse down if you like. And so God estimates, and teaches us to estimate, the relative value and greatness of the material and the spiritual in this fashion, that He says to us in effect: ‘All these magnificences and magnitudes round you are small and vulgar as compared with this-a heart in which wisdom and divine truth and the love and likeness of God have attained to some tolerable measure of maturity and of strength.’ These are His ‘jewels,’ as the Roman matron said about her two boys. The great Father looks upon the men that love Him as His jewels, and, having got the jewels, the rock in which they were embedded and preserved may be crushed when you like. ‘They shall be Mine,’ saith the Lord, ‘My treasures in that day of judgment which I make.’

And so, my brother, all the insignificance of man, as compared with the magnitude and duration of the universe, need not stagger our faith that the divinest thing in the universe is a heart that has learnt to love God and aspires after Him, and should but increase our wonder and our gratitude that He has been mindful of man and has visited him, in order that He might give Himself to men, and so might win men for Himself.

II. That brings me, and very briefly, to the other points that I desire to deal with now. The second one, which is suggested to us from my second text in the Epistle to Titus, is that this possession, by God, of man, like man’s possession of God, comes because God has given Himself to man.

The Apostle puts it very strongly in the Epistle to Titus: ‘The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might purify unto Himself a people for a possession.’ Israel, according to one metaphor, was God’s ‘son,’ begotten by that great redeeming act of deliverance from the captivity of Egypt {Deu 32:6 - Deu 32:19}. According to another metaphor, Israel was God’s bride, wooed and won for His own by that same act. Both of these figures point to the thought that in order to get man for His own He has to give Himself to man.

And the very height and sublimity of that truth is found in the Christian fact which the Apostle points to here. We need not depart from human analogies here either. Christ gave Himself to us that He might acquire us for Himself. Absolute possession of others is only possible at the price of absolute surrender to them. No human heart ever gave itself away unless it was convinced that the heart to which it gave itself had given itself to it.

And on the lower levels of gratitude and obligation, the only thing that binds a man to another in utter submission is the conviction that that other has given himself in absolute sacrifice for him. A doctor goes into the wards of an hospital with his life in his hands, and because he does, he wins the full confidence and affection of those whom he treats. You cannot buy a heart with anything less than a heart. In the barter of the world it is not ‘skin for skin,’ but it is ‘self for self’; and if you want to own me, you must give yourself altogether to me. And the measure in which teachers and guides and preachers and philanthropists of all sorts make conquests of men is the measure in which they make themselves sacrifices for men.

Now all that is true, and is lifted to its superlative truth, in the great central fact of the Christian faith. But there is more than human analogy here. Christ is not only self-sacrifice in the sense of surrender, but He is sacrifice in the sense of giving Himself for our redemption and forgiveness. He has not only given Himself to us, He has given Himself for us. And there, and on that, is builded, and on that alone has He a right to build, or have we a right to yield to it, His claim to absolute authority and utter command over each of us.

He has died for us, therefore the springs of our life are at His disposal; and the strongest motives which can sway our lives are set in motion by His touch. His death, says this text, redeems us from iniquity and purifies us. That points to its power in delivering us from the service and practice of sin. He buys us from the despot whose slaves we were, and makes us His own in the hatred of evil and the doing of righteousness. Moved by His death, we become capable of heroisms and martyrdoms of devotion to Him. Brethren, it is only as that self-sacrificing love touches us, which died for our sins upon the Cross, that the diabolical chain of selfishness will be broken from our affections and our wills, and we shall be led into the large place of glad surrender of ourselves to the sweetness and the gentle authority of His omnipotent love.

III. The last thought that I suggest is the issues to which this mutual possession points. God owns men, and is owned by them, in order that there may be a giving and receiving of mutual services of love.

‘The Lord’s portion is His people.’ That in the Old Testament is always laid as the foundation of certain obligations under which He has come, and which He will abundantly discharge. What is a great landlord expected to do to his estate? ‘What ought I to have done to my vineyard?’ the divine Proprietor asks through the mouth of His servant the prophet. He ought to till it, He ought not to starve it, He ought to fence it, He ought to cast a wall about it, He ought to reap the fruits. And He does all that for His inheritance. God’s honour is concerned in His portion not being waste. It is not to be a ‘garden of the sluggard,’ by which people who pass can see the thorns growing there. So He will till it, He will plough it, He will pick out the weeds, and all the disciplines of life will come to us, and the ploughshare will be driven deep into the heart, that ‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness’ may spring up. He will fence His vineyard. Round about His inheritance His hand will be cast, within His people His Spirit will dwell. No harm shall come near thee if thy love is given to Him; safe and untouched by evil thou shalt walk if thou walk with God. ‘He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine eye.’ The soul that trusts Him He takes in charge, and before any evil can fall to it ‘the pillared firmament must be rottenness, and earth be built on stubble.’ ‘He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is His people,’ and ‘none shall pluck them out of His hand.’

And on the other side, we belong to God in Christ. What do we owe Him? What does the vineyard owe the husbandman? Fruit. We are His, therefore we are bound to absolute submission. ‘Ye are not your own.’ Life, circumstances, occupations, all-we hold them at His will. We have no more right of property in anything than a slave in the bad old days had in his cabin and patch of ground. They belonged to the master to whom he belonged. Let us recognise our stewardship, and be glad to know ourselves His, and all events and things which we sometimes think ours, His also.

We are His, therefore we owe absolute trust. The slave has at least this blessing in his lot, that he need have no anxieties; nor need we. We belong to God, and He will take care of us. A rich man’s horses and dogs are well cared for, and our Owner will not leave us unheeded. Our well-being involves His good name. Leave anxious thought to masterless hearts which have to front the world with nobody at their backs. If you are God’s you will be looked after.

We are His, therefore we are bound to live to His praise. That is the conclusion which one Old Testament passage draws. ‘This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise’ {Isa 43:21}. The Apostle Peter quotes these words immediately after those from Exodus, which describe Israel as ‘a people for God’s own possession,’ when he says ‘that ye should show forth the praise of Him who hath called you.’ Let us, then, live to His glory, and remember that the servants of the King are bound to stand to their colours amid rebels, and that they who know the sweetness of possessing God, and the blessedness of yielding to His supreme control, should acknowledge what they have found of His goodness, and ‘tell forth the honour of His name, and make His praise glorious.’ Let not all the magnificent and wonderful expenditure of divine longing and love be in vain, nor run off your hearts like water poured upon a rock. Surely the sun’s flames leaping leagues high, they tell us, in tongues of burning gas, must melt everything that is near them. Shall we keep our hearts sullen and cold before such a fire of love? Surely that superb and wonderful manifestation of the love of God in the Cross of Christ should melt into running rivers of gratitude all the ice of our hearts.

‘He gave Himself for me!’ Let us turn to Him and say: ‘Lo! I give myself to Thee. Thou art mine. Make me Thine by the constraint of Thy love, so utterly, and so saturate my spirit with Thyself, that it shall not only be Thine, but in a very deep sense it shall be Thee, and that it may be “no more I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.”‘

Titus

CHRIST’S GIFT OF HIMSELF

Tit 2:14.

We have seen in former sermons on the preceding context that the Apostle has been setting forth the appearing of the grace of God as having for its great purpose the production of a holy and godly character and conduct. In these words which close the section he returns substantially to the same theme, only, as a great composer, will do with some favourite musical movement, he repeats it in a somewhat different key and with variations. The variations are mainly two. Instead of the more general and less definite expression, ‘the grace of God hath appeared,’ he now specifies the precise act in which that grace did appear. ‘He gave Himself for us.’ Christ’s self- sacrifice is the ‘appearing of the grace of God.’ The diffused flame is gathered into a focus, and thus concentrated .it has appeared to melt hearts. Then there is a second variation in the treatment of the theme here, and that is that the actor is different. In the former case it was ‘we’ who, trained by ‘the appearing of the grace,’ were to deny ourselves and ‘live soberly, righteously, and godly.’ Here it is ‘He’ who redeems and purifies us by His gift of Himself. He and we, the human and the divine, cooperate. If we ‘deny ourselves,’ and ‘live soberly, righteously, and godly,’ it is because He ‘has redeemed us.’ If He has purified us, it is in the measure in which we deny ourselves and yield ourselves to His influences. And so the two views stereoscope and become a solid reality.

Now then, there are three points to which I would turn especially in the words before us - Christ’s great self-bestowment, Christ’s great emancipation, Christ’s great acquisition. ‘He gave Himself,’ the great self- bestowment; ‘that He might redeem us,’ the great emancipation; ‘and purify unto Himself a people for a possession,’ the great acquisition.

I. First, then, the great self-bestowment.

‘He gave Himself,’ the supreme token of love every. where, the natural expression of love everywhere We know inferior instances of the same sort, and they make the very salt of life. The most self-engrossed recognizes their nobility, and the most cold-blooded thrills at the sight. We know what it is for benefactors, and well-wishers, and enthusiasts of all sorts to yield up themselves joyfully for some great cause not their own, or for some persons who appeal to their hearts. The one noble thing in the devilish trade of war is that there sometimes we can see men flinging their lives away gladly in the thrill of devotion to the cause for which they fight. In the narrower regions of our hearts and homes, happy husbands and wives, mothers to their children, know what it is joyfully to give themselves away. All these illustrations do help us, but they help us only a very little bit along the road to understand that supreme and transcendent gift of a self of which Paul is speaking here as the basis of all nobleness in the characters of men. After we have travelled as far as any human illustration or analogy will help us, we are still infinitely far from that great fact. They lead us along the road, but it is not only a question of travelling along a road, it is a question of springing from the furthest point attained up into the very heaven itself, for this gift is unique, and to be paralleled by naught beside.

It began earlier, the initial step was when ‘the Word became flesh.’ There was one Man who willed to be Man, and whose not being ‘ashamed to call us brethren,’ and taking upon Himself part of the children’s flesh and blood, was the supreme instance of condescending self-abandonment and bestowment. It began earlier; it went deeper; for not only is His self- surrender unstained by the smallest self-regard, as is manifest by the records of His life, but it goes down deep and deep and deep into such an utter gift of Himself as no mere human beneficence can ever emulate or even approximate to. And it brought with it heavier burdens and deeper sorrows, which culminated in that great act which, by its very greatness, has sometimes led men to separate it from the life of which it was the climax and superlative degree, and to declare that only in His death does the Lord give Himself for the life of the world, whereas the life among men, with all its pains of contact, with all its pains Of sympathy, with all its self-oblivion, was as really a part of Christ’s giving Himself to the world as was even that death upon the Cross, by which the gift was perfected and sealed. So then, brethren, whilst we thankfully accept the analogies which lead us a little way, let us never forget that in this matter degree is not the only difference, and quality as well as quantity are unlike.

But mark the other word. ‘He gave Himself for us.’ Now the Apostle here uses a word which does not imply ‘instead of,’ but ‘for our behalf.’ He is not for the moment dwelling upon the way in which that gift benefits - that comes in the next clause - but simply upon the fact that it does benefit. And Christ gave Himself - in a way to be subsequently declared- for the advantage of whoever may be included in the ‘us.’ And who are the ‘us’? Paul was talking to Titus, and was including with him these Cretan Christians, none of whom had ever been seen by or seen Jesus. So that ‘us’ is universal, and includes all humanity. But it does more than that. Jesus Christ’s giving of Himself to us was no indefinite gift of a general beneficence, which had no knowledge of, or feeling towards, the individual units that make up the company, but as I venture to believe, and as I would press upon you to consider whether our Christian conception of Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Word does not necessarily carry with it, the human heart of Christ loved each unit of the mass, that the divine eye separated and distinguished. We cannot ‘see the wood for the trees.’ We generalize our beneficence, and we lose sight of the individuals that are to be benefited by it. Who of us can specify the single souls or bodies that may be helped by our contributions to a fund for dealing with some general disaster? But Jesus Christ takes men one by one, and ‘He gave Himself for us’ because ‘He gave Himself for me,’ and thee, and thee, and all the single souls that make up mankind. Each was in His loving desire a recipient of the gift.

Brethren, I venture to assert, though it is impossible for me to go on here at any length to establish the assertion, that this conception of a Christ who not merely spoke, and was gentle and gracious, and the type of excellence, and the realised ideal of human perfection, but who came to do and to give Himself for the behalf of every soul of man, is the heart of Christianity. This is the view which, like a key, will unlock the rusty gates of our wills and spirits. This is the conception which alone adequately represents the teaching of scripture, the requirements of the deepest reason, and what is even more authoritative, the instinctive needs of hungry, sin-laden hearts. Here is the lever that moves the world: ‘He gave Himself for us.’

II. Now, secondly, notice Christ’s great emancipation.

The Apostle states the object of the gift in a twofold fashion, ‘That He might redeem us all from iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ Let me deal now with the former of these two expressions. The object of Christ’s gift is man’s redemption. And what is redemption? Well, it is no doubt a metaphorical expression, and there lies beneath it the image of a slave set free by a ransom. That is in the word, and no fair interpretation of the word can strike that out of the depth of its meaning. So then we begin as the fundamental fact, without which we shall never come either to understand the meaning of Christ’s whole appearance, or get the highest good out of it for our own souls, with this conception of our condition - that we are in bondage to what the Apostle here calls ‘iniquity,’ or lawlessness.

Now do not say that this is Pauline, and that the Christ of the gospels does not say so. He does. Do you remember what He said when the people, with that strange but yet universal forgetfulness or ignoring of the facts of their condition, said to Him, whilst the Roman garrison in the castle might have heard the boast: ‘We were never in bondage to any man’? He answered: ‘He that doeth sin is the slave of sin.’ You may like it or not like it; you may believe that it is the deepest view of human nature; or you may brush it aside as being narrow and pessimistic and old-fashioned, and all the rest of it, but it is Christ’s view. Do not say it is Paul’s. It is Paul’s; but he got it from Jesus, and you have Him to reckon with, and Him to contradict, if you do not. And, alas! a great many of us do not recognise that, after all is said and done, the fact of sin, considered as setting up myself as my own centre and law, in antagonism to, or in neglect of, God, who ought to be my centre, is the universal experience of humanity. The fetters are on our limbs. I remember a story of an English author in the early part of last century, who was put into prison for some imaginary offence, and who pleased himself in a puerile fashion by twisting flowers round the grating of his window, and making believe that he was a free man. Yes, that is what a great many of us do. We try to hide the fetters by putting silk handkerchiefs over them. We, too, like these presumptuous Jews, say: ‘We were never in bondage to any man.’ No, not in bondage to any man, but in bondage worse than that. What about those tendencies in yourself - these lusts and passions, these temptations to ignoring God and living for self, and to other sins that, like springing tigers, have fixed their talons in us and keep us down, in spite of our kicking and struggling? The root cause of almost all the inadequate conceptions of Christ and His work which depart from the plain teaching of Christ and Scripture, lies here, that men do not recognise the fact of their bondage to sin. Wherever that recognition is weak, you will have a maimed Christ and an impotent Christ. It is of small profit to argue about theological doctrines unless you can get a man to feel that he is a sinful man in God’s sight. And when he has learnt what sin means, what guilt means, what the tyranny of a committed transgression means, what the awful voice of a roused conscience means, he will be ready to fling aside all his superficial, easygoing thoughts about Jesus of Nazareth, and to clutch as his one hope the great word: ‘Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’ ‘He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us.’

And so we come to the conception that that giving Himself for us is more than a giving of Himself on behalf of us, in some vague way, and that the way in which Jesus Christ gives Himself for us is that He gives ‘Himself instead of us.

And there, as I humbly venture to believe, is the point of view at which we must stand, if we would give due weight either to His words or to His Cross. There is the point of view at which, as I humbly venture to believe, we must stand if we would receive into our hearts the greatest blessing that that Lord can give - emancipation from sin’s guilt by that great Sacrifice of His, emancipation from sin’s power by the presence within us of His own life and spirit. Christ came into the world ‘to give His life a ransom for many.’ Again I say, therefore, do not pooh-pooh such teaching as this of my text, or may I venture to say - I do it with all humility - such teaching as I am trying to give now, with the easy and superficial remarks that it is Pauline. It is Christ’s - ‘The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many.’ Oh, dear friends, there is the power. Christianity minus that Sacrifice is not a Christianity that the world or the flesh or the devil have ever been, or ever need to have been, much afraid of. We may gather metaphors in crowds to illustrate that Sacrifice, but they all fail, for it is unique and transcendent. Men have given themselves up to fetters that others might be made free. Men have given themselves up to the death that others might live. There was a Swiss soldier in one fight who gathered the spears of the enemy into a sheaf, and pointed them to his own breast, that a path might be cleared for the advance of his comrades. The angel that came into Peter’s cell touched him and the fetters fell from his limbs. Christ has come into the dark prison of our humanity, and a drop of His blood on the fetters that bind me to my sin, and my sin to me, corrodes them into dust, and my limbs are free. He fronts all our tyrants as He fronted the Roman soldiers, and says, ‘I am He; if ye seek Me, let these go their way.’ He ‘gave Himself for us that He might redeem us.’

III. And now your time will not allow me to speak, except very inadequately, about the last point that is here, and that is Christ’s great acquisition.

‘That He might purify unto Himself a people for a possession’ - as is the proper rendering - ‘zealous of good works.’ The Apostle is quoting, as I suppose we all know, from the ancient words which make the charter of the Israelitish nation, in which God declared that they were to Him a ‘people of a possession above all the nations that are on the earth,’ and he transfers these great words to Christ, and our relation to Him. He, too, has won a people for His very own. Christ wins us for His because He has given Himself to be ours. Mark how beautifully the reciprocalness of the relation is suggested by the former clause of our text, ‘He gave Himself for us,’ that He might win us for Himself ‘for a possession.’ Yes, in the commerce of love, nothing but a heart can buy a heart, nothing but a heart can pay for a heart. Jesus gives Himself to me, that I may give myself to Him. That is the only gift that satisfies Him. The only result which He recognizes as being the fruit of the travail of His soul, which is sufficient for Him, is that we poor men, delivered from our selfishness, emancipated from our sins, with our wills set free, should go to Him and say, ‘Lord, Thou art mine, and I, poor as I am, little as the gift is, I am Thine.’

We shall only be His in the measure in which we are ‘purified.’ And it is His love that purifies us, and His gift that purifies. For that gift sets in operation within us a multitude of new motives and new desires. And, more than that, He gave Himself that our sins might be taken away. But there is the present gift, as well as the past one, for He is giving Himself still, moment by moment, and hour by hour, to every one that cleaves to Him. And that gift of Himself comes into our hearts as, according to Luther’s old metaphor, the Elbe was turned into the stable to sweep out all the filth, and make all things clean.

So, dear friends, let us cleave to that Lord. Let us see to it that we have fathomed, and not only fathomed, but accepted, the great gift of Himself in its most transcendent form, in its mightiest efficacy, the gift by which, by His death, He has taken away the guilt, and by His life within us, breaks the power of our sins, and makes us eager zealots, enthusiasts for all manner of ‘good works.’

Titus

ZEALOUS OF GOOD WORKS

Tit 2:14.

WE have seen in previous sermons on the preceding context how emphatically the Apostle reiterates that the end of the gospel is the production of Christlike and Christ-pleasing character. For this purpose our Lord came, and in Him the grace of God broke through the clouds which wrapped men in dark folds of ignorance and sin. For this end Christ died, giving Himself for us, that ‘He might redeem us from iniquity and purify unto Himself a people for a possession.’ That insistence on practice as the upshot of doctrine is characteristic of the three last letters of the Apostle, which are called the Pastoral Epistles, and it is very natural in an old man. Just as tradition tells us that when John was too feeble to walk, and too old to say much, he was carried Sunday by Sunday into the assembly of the Church to say nothing more than ‘Little children, love one another,’ so Paul, having laid the foundations in the great doctrinal Epistles of his early time, now an old man, deals rather with practice than with doctrine. But the practice is, in his mind, the offshoot of, and inseparably connected with, the doctrine, and to pit the one against the other, as Some people do nowadays, is to say, ‘I do not care much about root; fruit is what I want’; or, ‘I make little account of what a man eats; what I look to is his muscle and his strength.’ But will there be any fruit without a root, or any muscle and strength that is not nourished? Paul’s gospel is ethical because it is a gospel.

Now these words of my text are a kind of appendix to what precedes them, in which the Apostle has been sketching the sort of people that Christ’s mission and work are intended to make. He says they are to be redeemed, they are to be purified, they are to be won for Christ’s own, and to be conscious that they are His; and then he adds this remarkable expression which I have not been able to deal with at length in former sermons, but which is too important to pass by - ‘zealous’ - what for? - ‘good works.’

Now I think, if we will consider these words, we shall find that they convey, some lessons, always important, and, as it seems to me, extremely important for the Church of this generation.

I. A consistent Christian will be a zealous Christian. I do not need to waste your time in trying to define what zeal is.

We all know it. When we approve of its object we admire it and call it ‘beautiful consecration’; when we are not in sympathy with its objects we call it ‘ridiculous exaggeration’ and ‘fanaticism.’ Its elements are threefold, an overmastering recognition of the greatness of some truth, or cause, or person, for which, or for whom, we are ‘ zealous ‘ - a glow of emotion arising from that recognition, and a consciousness of obligation to strain all our powers for the diffusion of the truth, or the advancement of the cause, or the honour of the person, for whom we are zealous. Now, of course, when a man gets hold of some truth that masters him, there is always the danger of his losing the sense of proportion, of his getting his perspective wrong, and being so swallowed up in the one thing that he sees, that, like a horse with blinkers, he does not see anything except that one narrow line that lies in front of him. And so zeal is always in danger of being deformed into fanaticism, but it is God’s way in working the world onwards, to raise up successions of men, each of whom recognizes with overwhelming clearness some one little segment of the great orb of truth, and the world advances because there are men that believe in one thing, that see one thing, and that give themselves, body and soul, to the setting forth of that one thing. All the rest of us stand by and say, ‘What ridiculous exaggeration! how entirely oblivious he is counter-balancing considerations; how he has narrowed himself down into being the instrument and the apostle of this one thing!’ Yes; and if you want to bore a hole through a six-inch plank, you have to put a pretty sharp point upon your tool, and to make it very ‘narrow.’ The world never gets to see any truth, until it has been hammered into it by some man who did not see any other truth.

There will come, too, with that overwhelming conception of the greatness of the truth, or of the person, or of the cause, a glow of emotion. Argument may be worked in fire or in frost, and the arguments that melt are warm, or if I might go back to my former figure, your boring tool will penetrate more quickly and easily if it has been heated as well as pointed. And zeal glows, and it is the glow rather than reasoning that convinces men.

I need not dwell upon other characteristics of zeal, but my next thought is - Christianity is such as that, if a man really and fully accepts it, he cannot help being zealous. Look at the truths that we say we believe. We believe in ideas about the significance and issues of this earthly life, so solemn, so great, so transcending all present experience, that it is incredible that they can enter into a man’s mind in any deep sense, and leave him cold and indifferent. We believe in such truths about Sin and Judgment and Eternity that they might kindle a soul beneath the ribs of death, and burn up all indifference, so as that the extremist, enthusiastic grasp of them is only moderation and rational. We say that we believe that the infinite, divine nature was incarnated in a Man, and that that Man lived and died because He loved every soul, and that that death brings to the world emancipation, and that Life brings to the world life, and that these things are true for all men. What I maintain is, that if a man really believes these things, not with the mere conventional faith that characterizes multitudes of professing Christians, it is impossible that he should be left cold. If the sun is shining the temperature will go up; and if the thermometer does not rise it is because something or other has come between the sunbeam and the mercury. If the iceberg floats down into the warm oceans of the temperate or tropical zones it will melt into sweet water, and it cannot remain ice. If it continue grim and cold, it is because there is only the sun of the Arctic winter, which has a pale light, and scarcely any warmth at all, shining down upon it. An indifferent Christian, who believes in sin and in redemption and in an incarnate Christ and in a sacrifice on the Cross and in a Divine Spirit and in a future Judgment and remains cold, is all but an impossibility; he is a contradiction in terms, and a living monster.

Brethren, I venture to plead with you that there are few things which the conventional Christianity of this day needs more than to awake to the fact that the ‘sober standard of feeling in matters of religion,’ which some so much admire, is contrary to the genius of the gospel, and the importance of the truths which it con-rains. And when I say a sober standard I do not mean the sobriety which the New Testament enjoins, but I mean the sobriety which the conventional Christianity of this day so much admires, and which is scarcely distinguishable with a microscope from absolute indifference. We are frequently besought to beware of enthusiasm. I hear from quarters where one would not expect to hear it, the cynical politician’s advice, ‘Not too much zeal, I beg of you.’ And I venture to oppose to all that what the voice of the Master from heaven said, ‘I would thou were cold or hot.’ This Christianity that never turns a hair, that does not know what zeal means, seems to me uncommonly like no Christianity at all.

We all want to be roused from our torpor. This community, like every church of professing Christians, is weighted by a mass of loosely attached and halt-believing professing Christians who are nothing better than clogs on the wheel, and instruments for Bringing down the temperature of the whole mass. And what we want, I believe more than anything else, is that we should be zealous, as dominated by the overwhelming greatness and solemnity of the truths, and melted into a passion of love by the overwhelming greatness and love of the Person whom the gospel reveals to us. We are to be ‘zealous,’ and whilst I dare not say that a true Christian will be a zealous one, I dare not conceal my conviction that a consistent Christian will be.

II. Now notice that such zeal finds its best field in our personal character.

‘Zealous ‘ - the word suggests, I suppose, pictures of men, devoted to a cause, and going out into the world to try and persuade other people to believe it, becoming the apostles and missionaries of some truth, or of some movement, or of some great principle, religious or social But Paul suggests here another region in which zeal is to find exercise - ‘zealous for good works’

Now do not let us interpret these last two words in the narrow, conventional sense which they have come to bear in the Church. It is a very significant and a very sad thing that this wide expression ‘good works,’ which in the Apostle’s mind covered the whole ground of Christian morality, has been narrowed down to mean specific acts of beneficence, bits of charity, giving away blankets and soup, visiting the poor, and the like, which have got stamped on them, with just a soul. on of contempt in the expression, the name ‘good works.’ He means a great deal more than that. He means exactly the same thing which he has already twice described as being the end of the gospel, that we should ‘live soberly, righteously, godly,’ and again, that we should be redeemed from all iniquity, and purified. Within the four corners of this expression, ‘good works,’ lie ‘whatsoever things are lovely and of good report,’ every virtue and every praise. That is the width of the object which the Apostle here proposes for Christian zeal.

Now the word which he here employs, and which is rightly translated ‘zealous,’ is literally ‘a Zealot.’ In Jewish history the Zealots were a class of men who, from the days of the Maccabees downwards, were fanatically devoted to the ritual and law of Judaism, and vehemently opposed any relaxation of or departure from it. But their religious zeal, as they thought it, did not keep them from the blackest crimes, and there were no more turbulent and no more immoral men in the dying agonies of the Jewish State than these zealots who had a zeal for God, but neither according to knowledge nor according to morality. One of the apostles, Simon Zelotes - the Zealot - had probably belonged to that class, and had found out a better Object for his zeal, when he turned to Jesus Christ and became an apostle. Paul uses the word in reference to himself when he speaks about himself as having been exceedingly ‘zealous for the traditions of the fathers,’ and it is used in Acts of the many Jewish Christians who are spoken of as being all ‘zealous for the Law.’ That is one type of zeal - a zeal that fastens on externals, that tries to enforce specific acts of conduct, that is devoted to ceremonial and regulations and red tape. And Paul points us here to another type, ‘Zealous for good works.’ Jehu, with His hands carmined with wholesale slaughter, turned to the son of Rechab and said, ‘Come and see my zeal for the Lord.’ Yes, a little bit for the Lord, and a great deal for Jehu. That is the sort of thing that goes about the world as zeal. A turbid river in spate picks up and carries along a great many foul elements; and zeal is always in danger of becoming passionate indignation against a man who will not believe what I want him to believe, not so much because it is true as because I think it is. A great many very impure elements mix themselves up with our zeal, when it is directed to amending the world. If we set to amend ourselves, and direct our zeal in that direction, we shall find ‘ample scope and verge enough’ for its operations. And, brethren, what different lives we should live if instead of feeling bound to the exercise of virtues and graces Which do not come sweet and easy to us, and instead of feeling that we ought to do so and so, and that we do not one bit wish to do it, we had this overmastering enthusiasm for holiness and passion for perfection which is involved in the words before us. To be’ zealous of good works’ is to be eagerly desirous of being beautiful and pure and true and noble and Christlike, to be panting after perfection, and casting ourselves with all the energy of our nature into the work of growing like Christ. That is what Paul wants us all to be. Let us ask ourselves, is it the least like what I am? Does my Christian zeal go all out in the work of amending other people, or do I begin with amending myself?

III. And now my last word is, that this passion for perfection will come to us just in the measure in which we let the gospel He upon our hearts and minds and influence us.

The truths will produce it, but not unless they are wrought into our minds and hearts. Christ, whom the truths reveal, will produce it, but not unless we keep ourselves by honest effort of mind and heart and will in close contact with Him. The upshot of all that i have been trying to say is this, that the one thing which the superficial half-and-half Christianity of this day needs is that it should come into closer contact with the truths of the gospel. I plead for no blind, unintelligent zeal, I plead for no worked-up, artificial fervour. I want no engine without a driver, I want no zeal that, like Phaeton, will upset the car and set everything on fire. I want that Christian men should believe what they believe, and that they should meditate on the truths of the gospel intelligently, systematically, as a whole, and that they should be in touch with Him whom the truths reveal. A ruminant belief that chews the cud of the truths it professes is what today’s Christianity sorely wants. And if we in such a fashion keep ourselves under the spell of these truths, .then the zeal will come; not else. The spurious zeal which is excited by other stimulants will do more harm than good, and will be not like the river that flows, bringing fertility and freshness, but like the furious torrents of the spring when the ice is melting and the snows running down, which sweep away the very soil where growth was possible, and leave behind only barren rock.

Fix in your hearts and minds, and God grant that they may influence your conduct, these two things - on the one hand, that your Christianity is very suspicious if it has no flow in it towards Jesus, and if it has no passion towards perfection; and, on the other hand, that the surest way to bring all beauties of a moral and spiritual sort into your character and out into your lives is to gaze believingly on the appearing of She grace which God has sent us for the very purpose even of Him who gave Himself for us. When we are moved thereby to give ourselves to Him, we shall ‘covet earnestly the best gifts,’ and be ‘zealous for,’ and not merely reluctant and grudging doers of, ‘good works.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:14 Salvation produces a people who have the desire and capacity for the good deeds outlined in 2:2-10. • He gave his life: See also 1 Tim 2:6. • to free us: See Gal 3:22; 4:4-5; cp. Exod 6:6-8. • The phrase his very own people recalls the formation of Israel as a nation (see Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2). Those who follow Christ are now God’s people—his nation—and the Spirit leads them to keep God’s covenant. • totally committed to doing good deeds: See Titus 1:16; Eph 2:10.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Tit 2:14. Ἵνα λυτρώσηται, that He might redeem) An allusion to redemption from slavery.[12]—λαὸν περιούσιον, a peculiar people) The adjective would be translated into Latin by superfactum. Columella writes, villica debet separare, quœ consumenda sunt, et quœ superfieri possunt, custodire, “a farmer’s wife should separate what is to be consumed, and keep what may be left over and above.” Comp. περιποίησις, 1Pe 2:9, note. [The περὶ in composition often expresses something remaining over and above. So περιποίησις, in Peter, something which God reserves to Himself out of all. And περιούσιος, a people peculiarly God’s own above all nations, Exo 19:5-6; LXX.]

[12] He had been speaking of slaves or servants, ver. 9.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tit_2:14. The thought in this verse is very closely related to Tit_2:12 : παιδεύουσα ἡμᾶς, ἵνα κ.τ.λ., as it shows how far the appearance of the grace of God exhorts us to deny ἀσέβεια κ.τ.λ. In construction, however, it is connected with σωτῆρος ἡμ. Ἰ. Χρ.

ὃς ἔδωκεν ἑαυτόν] comp. Gal_1:4, equivalent to παρέδωκεν ἑαυτόν, Eph_5:25. The conception of the voluntary submission to death is not contained in ἑαυτόν (Heydenreich) so much as in the whole expression.

ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν] is not equivalent to ἀντὶ ἡμῶν, but: for us, on our behalf; the notion of ἀντί, however, is not excluded (Mat_20:28). The purpose of this submission is given in the next words: ἵνα λυτρώσηται ἡμᾶς] λυτροῦσθαι: set free by means of a ransom. In Luk_24:21 (comp. too, 1Ma_4:11, and other passages in the Apocrypha) the reference to ransom falls quite into the background; but in 1Pe_1:18-19, where, as here, the redemption through Christ is spoken of, the τίμιον αἷμα of Christ is called the ransom. The same reference is indicated here by the previous ἔδωκεν ἑαυτόν, comp. 1Ti_2:6. The middle form includes the reference which in the next clause is expressed by ἑαυτῷ.

ἀπὸ πάσης ἀνομίας] from all unlawfulness. Ἀνομία is regarded as the power from which Christ has redeemed us; it is opposed to σωφρόνως καὶ δικαίως καὶ εὐσεβῶς ζῆν: the unrighteousness in which the law of God is unheeded. It is wrong to understand by ἀνομία not only the sin, but also the punishment incurred by sin (Heydenreich), or only the latter; comp. Rom_6:19, 2Co_6:14, and especially 1Jn_3:4 : ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία.

καὶ καθαρίσῃ ἑαυτῷ λαὸν περιούσιον] positive expression of the thought which was expressed negatively in the previous clause. De Wette and Wiesinger without reason supply ἡμᾶς as the object of καθαρίσῃ; the object is λαὸν περιούσιον.

περιούσιος (ἅπ. λεγ. in N. T.). Chrysostom wrongly interprets it by ἐξελεγμένος, οὐδὲν ἔχων κοινὸν πρὸς τοὺς λοιπούς; Theodoret more correctly by οἰκεῖος; so, too, Beza: peculiaris, and Luther: a people for a possession. The phrase λαὸς περιούσιος belongs to the O. T., and is a translation of the Hebrew עַם סְגֻלָּה, Exo_19:5; Deu_7:6; Deu_14:2; Deu_26:18, LXX.; in the church of the N. T. the promise made to the people of Israel is fulfilled; comp. 1Pe_2:9 : λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν.

ἑαυτῷ corresponds with λυτρώσηται ἀπό. The sentence is pregnantly expressed, and its meaning is: that He by the purifying power of His death might acquire for Himself (ἑαυτῷ) a people for a possession.

The moral character of the λαὸς περιούσ. is declared by the words in apposition, ζηλωτὴν καλῶν ἔργων: accensum studio bonorum operum.

De Wette is inaccurate in saying that the apostle is speaking here not of reconciliation, but only of moral purification. Wiesinger rightly asks: What else are we to understand by ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν than the reconciling death? But de Wette is so far right, that reconciliation is not made the chief point here, but rather, as often in the N. T., e.g. 1Pe_1:17-18, the design is mentioned for which Christ suffered the death of reconciliation; comp. Luthers exposition of the second article of faith.

Tit_2:15. Ταῦτα (viz. these moral precepts, see Tit_2:1, with the reasons given for them, Tit_2:11-14) λάλει καὶ παρακάλει καὶ ἔλεγχε] The distinction between these words is correctly given by Heydenreich. Λαλεῖν denotes simple teaching, παρακάλ. pressing exhortation, ἐλέγχ. solemn admonition to those who neglect these duties. The theoretic, the paraenetic-practical, and the polemic aspects of the preaching of the gospel are combined (Matthies).

μετὰ πάσης ἐπιταγῆς] According to 1Co_7:6, συγγνώμη is the opposite of ἐπιταγή; this clause therefore enjoins that Titus is not to leave it to the free choice of the church whether his exhortations shall be obeyed or not, but to deliver them as commands. De Wette translates: with all recommendation, which is right in sense; still ἐπιταγή is not properly recommendation but command, and it is therefore better to say, with entire full command.

With this the final words are closely connected: μηδείς σου περιφρονείτω] περιφρονεῖν (ἅπ. λεγ.); properly: consider something on all sides; then: think beyond, despise, equivalent to καταφρονεῖν; comp. 1Ti_4:12. Luther is right in sense: let no man despise thee, viz. by not receiving thy teachings, exhortations, and admonitions as commands, and by thinking lightly of them. There is nothing to suggest that Titus is to conduct himself so that no one may be right in despising him.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tit 2:14 . ὃς ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν κ . τ . λ .: see note on 1Ti 2:6 . As already observed, this is an appeal from the constraining love of Christ to the responding love of man.

λυτρώσηται : deliver . The language is borrowed from Psa 129 (130):8 αὐτὸς λυτρώσεται τὸν Ἰσραὴλ ἐκ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτοῦ . The material supplied by this passage for a discussion of the Atonement is contained in ἔδωκεν … ἡμῶν , not in λυτρώσηται . See Dean Armitage Robinson’s note on Eph 1:14 .

ἀνομίας : Lawlessness is the essence of sin (1Jn 3:4 ), self-assertion as opposed to self-sacrifice which is love. Love, which is self-sacrifice, is a dissolvent of self-assertion or sin. And to what degree soever we allow the love of Christ to operate as a controlling principle in our lives, to that degree we are delivered from ἀνομία , as an opposing controlling principle.

καθαρίσῃ ἑαυτῷ λαόν : This is a pregnant expression for “purify and so make them fit to be his people”. St. Paul has in mind Eze 37:23 , “I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God”, ῥύσομαι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτῶν ὧν ἡμάρτοσαν ἐν αὐταῖς , καὶ καθαριῶ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔσονταί μοι εἰς λαὸν , κ . τ . λ . There is in καθαρίσῃ an allusion to Holy Baptism, which is explicit in Tit 3:5 . Cf. Eph 5:26 , ἵνα αὐτὴν ἁγιάσῃ καθαρίσας τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι .

λαὸν περιούσιον : populum acceptabilem (Vulg.). A people for his own possession (R.V.) is the modern equivalent of a peculiar people (A.V.). λαὸς περιούσιος is the LXX for עַם סְגֻלָּה . סְגֻלָּה means “a valued property, a peculiar treasure” ( peculium ), and occurs first in Exo 19:5 , “Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me.” Here the LXX inserts λαός , possibly from the references in Deut., in which the combination סגלה עם is found. סגלה alone occurs in Mal 3:17 ( εἰς περιποίησιν ) and in Psa 135:4 ( εἰς περιουσιασμόν ). The LXX of Mal 3:17 is echoed in Eph 1:14 , εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως , (where see Dean Armitage Robinson’s note) and 1Pe 2:9 , λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν , in which λαός is a reminiscence of the LXX of the passages in Exod. and Deut. Perhaps περιούσιος refers to the treasure as laid up, while περιποίησις refers to it as acquired.

ζηλωτὴν καλῶν ἔργων : See Eph 2:10 ; 1Pe 1:15 ; Heb 10:24 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. δς ἕδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, Who gave Himself for us. This is the phrase in which St Paul again and again describes the efficacy of the Lord’s Atonement; cp. Rom 8:32; Gal 1:4; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:25, and see on 1Ti 2:6.

ἵνα λυτρώσηται ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀνομίας, in order that He might redeem us from all iniquity. The final cause of the Atonement is represented in Tit 2:14 as (a) negative (Redemption), (b) positive (Sanctification). In this clause we have its negative purpose described; it is to redeem us from all sin (all sin is ἀνομία, 1Jn 3:4, and ἀνομία here stands for violation of the moral law in general). The rationale of the Atoning Efficacy of the Lord’s Death is illustrated in the N.T. by various metaphors, such as Ransom, Reconciliation, Sacrifice. Here (as at 1Ti 2:6) the metaphor of emancipation from slavery, ransom from the bondage of sin, is adopted, the language used being taken from Psalms 129 (130):8 καὶ αὐτὸς (sc. ὁ κύριος) λυτρώσεται τὸν Ἰσπαὴλ ἐκ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτοῦ, where this ‘plenteous redemption’ is sung as the work of the Messiah who was to come (cp. also Eze 37:23). This was the metaphor which (possibly because of its adoption by our Lord Himself, Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45) was most frequently dwelt on by the early Church; and from Irenaeus to Anselm the one theory of the Atonement, which was popularly regarded as orthodox, was that which set forth the Lord’s Death as a ‘ransom’ paid to the devil, into whose bonds man had fallen. The metaphor of ‘redemption from evil’ was all too soon hardened into a theory of ‘ransom from the Evil One.’ See Westcott Hebrews, p. 295, and Abbott Ephesians, p. 11.

What has been said above (on 2Ti 4:17) as to the usage of ἀπό and ἐκ after verbs of deliverance suggests that the change of the ἐκ of the Psalm into ἀπό is not without significance; redemption ἐκ πάσης ἀνομίας would only indicate deliverance from all the acts of lawlessness of which man had been guilty; ἀπό indicates a complete deliverance from the neighbourhood and company of sin, whether original or actual.

καὶ καθαρίσῃ ἑαυτῷ λαὸν περιούσιον κ.τ.λ., and might purify to Himself a peculiar people, i.e. a people for His own possession. This is the positive purpose of the Atonement; not only ransom from sin (not to speak of deliverance from the pains of hell), but sanctification to a good life. The two things go together; cp. 2Co 7:1. In this clause St Paul again uses the language of the LXX. to express the sacred truths which have been committed to him to teach; λαὸς περιούσιος is the equivalent of עם סְנֻלָּה, ‘a people of possession’ (Exo 19:6; Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2; Deu 26:18), the phrase used by St Peter being λεὸς εἰς περιποίησιν (1Pe 2:9; cp. Mal 3:17). περιούσιος is usually represented in the Vulgate by peculiaris or in peculium, whence Tyndale’s rendering “peculiar people” is derived; but in this verse (Tit 2:14) curiously enough the Vulgate has acceptabilem. The original Hebrew shews that the word περιούσιος is almost identical with the classical ἐξαίρετος, ‘chosen out’ as it were for God’s purposes; and this is the proper sense of the adj. peculiar which has gained, from this and parallel passages, a permanent place in our language[514].

[514] See Lightfoot, Revision of the N.T. Appendix II., for a full discussion of the word περιούσιος.

ζηλωτὴν καλῶν ἔργων, zealous of good works. see on 1Ti 2:10 for the place which ‘good works’ occupy in the theology of the Pastoral Epistles. For the word ζηλωτής cp. Act 22:3; 1Co 14:12; Gal 1:14.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gave himself for us [εδωκεν εαυτον υπερ ημων] . See on 1Ti 2:6, and comp. Gal 1:4. Uper on behalf of; not instead of. Might redeem [λυτρωσηται] . Only here, Luk 24:21; 1Pe 1:18. See on 1Ti 2:6. Neither lutron ransom, lutrwsiv redemption, nor lutrwthv redeemer occur in Paul. He has the figure of purchase [αγοραζεσθαι, εξαγοραζεσθαι] , 1Co 6:20; 1Co 7:23; Gal 3:13; Gal 4:5. Comp. Rev 5:9; Rev 14:3, 4; 2Pe 2:1.

Iniquity [ανομιας] . Only here in Pastorals. Lit. Lawlessness. See on 1Jo 3:4.

Might purify [καθαριση] . In Pastorals only here. Mostly in Synoptic Gospels and Hebrews. In Paul, 2Co 7:1; Eph 5:26. o Class. Often in LXX

A peculiar people (laon periousion). Laov people only here in Pastorals. In Paul ten times, always in citations. Most frequently in Luke and Acts; often in Hebrews and Revelation. Periousiov N. T. o. A few times in LXX, always with laov. See Exo 19:5; Exo 23:22; Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2; Deu 26:18. The phrase was originally applied to the people of Israel, but is transferred here to believers in the Messiah - Jews and Gentiles. Comp. 1Pe 2:10. Periousiov is from the participle of perieinai to be over and above : hence periousia abundance, plenty. Periousiov also means possessed over and above, that is, specially selected for one's own; exempt from ordinary laws of distribution. Hence correctly represented by peculiar, derived from peculium, a private purse, a special acquisition of a member of a family distinct from the property administered for the good of the whole family. Accordingly the sense is given in Eph 1:14, where believers are said to have been sealed eijv ajpolutrwsin thv peripoihsewv with a view to redemption of possession, or redemption which will give possession, thus = acquisition. So 1Pe 2:9, where Christians are styled laov eijv peripoihsin a people for acquisition, to be acquired by God as his peculiar possession. Comp. 1Th 5:9; 2Th 2:14, and peripoieisqai to acquire, Act 20:28. The phrase kaqarizein laon to purify the people, in LXX, Neh 12:30; Judith 16 18.

Zealous [ζηλωτην] . Lit. a zealot. Comp. Act 21:20; Act 22:3; 1Pe 3:13. Only here in Pastorals. In Paul, 1Co 14:12; Gal 1:14. For the word as a title, see on the Canaanite, Mt 10:4, and Mr 3:18. Authority [επιταγης] . See on 1Ti 1:1.

Despise [περιφρονειτω] . N. T. o. Occasionally in Class. From peri beyond, fronein to be minded. To set one's self in thought beyond; hence; contemn, despise. Comp. 1Ti 4:12. The exhortation is connected with authority. Tit. is to claim respect for his office and for himself as bearing it.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

As it were a thing peculiarly laid up for himself.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

gave himself--"The forcible 'Himself, His whole self, the greatest gift ever given,' must not be overlooked."

for us--Greek, "in our behalf."

redeem us--deliver us from bondage by paying the price of His precious blood. An appropriate image in addressing bond-servants (Tit 2:9-10):

from all iniquity--the essence of sin, namely, "transgression of the law": in bondage to which we were till then. The aim of His redemption was to redeem us, not merely from the penalty, but from the being of all iniquity. Thus he reverts to the "teaching" in righteousness, or disciplining effect of the grace of God that bringeth salvation (Tit 2:11-12).

peculiar--peculiarly His own, as Israel was of old.

zealous--in doing and promoting "good works."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 14. Who gave himself for us] Who gave his own life as a ransom price to redeem ours. This is evidently what is meant, as the words λυτρωσηται and λαον περιουσιον imply. The verb λυτροω signifies to redeem or ransom by paying a price, as I have often had occasion to observe; and περιουσιος signifies such a peculiar property as a man has in what he has purchased with his own money. Jesus gave his life for the world, and thus has purchased men unto himself; and, having purchased the slaves from their thraldom, he is represented as stripping them of their sordid vestments, cleansing and purifying them unto himself that they may become his own servants, and bringing them out of their dishonourable and oppressive servitude, in which they had no proper motive to diligence and could have no affection for the despot under whose authority they were employed. Thus redeemed, they now become his willing servants, and are zealous of good works-affectionately attached to that noble employment which is assigned to them by that Master whom it is an inexpressible honour to serve. This seems to be the allusion in the above verse.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14 Who gave himself for us. This is another argument of exhortation, drawn from the design or effect of the death of Christ, who offered himself for us, that he might redeem us from the bondage of sin, and purchase us to himself as his heritage. His grace, therefore, necessarily brings along with it “newness of life,” (Romans 6:4,) because they who still are the slaves of sin make void the blessing of redemption; but now we are released from the bondage of sin, in order that we may serve the righteousness of God; and, therefore, he immediately added, —

A peculiar people, zealous of good works; by which he means that, so far as concerns us, the fruit of redemption is lost, if we are still entangled by the sinful desires of the world. And in order to express more fully, that we have been consecrated to good works by the death of Christ, he makes use of the word purify; for it would be truly base in us to be again polluted by the same filth from which the Son of God hath washed us by his blood.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(14) Who gave himself for us.—(See Gal_1:4; Eph_5:25.) These words take up the thought expressed in the term “Saviour” of the last verse. “Himself,” His whole self, as has been well said, “the greatest gift ever given;” “for us,” that is, on our behalf.

That he might redeem us from all iniquity.—That He for us might pay a ransom, the ransom being His precious blood. Our Saviour, by the payment of this tremendous ransom—O deepest and most unfathomable of all mysteries!—released us from everything which is opposed to God’s blessed will. Here the mighty ransom is spoken of as freeing us from the bondage of lawlessness; elsewhere in the divine books the same ransom is described as delivering us from the penalties of this same breaking the divine law—“alles was der Ordnung Gottes widerstreitet” (Hofmann, Commentary on Titus).

And purify unto himself a peculiar people.—The expression “a peculiar people” is taken from the LXX. translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, where the words occur several times (see Exo_19:5; Deu_14:2); the idea is also purely an Old Testament one. Just as Jehovah wished to establish a people which should belong to Him (“peculiarly His,” “His very own”), submitting to His laws, in contrast to the rest of mankind, lawless, idolatrous—so Jesus would set apart and purify for Himself a people, which for His sake should devote itself to God, in contrast to the rest of humanity sunk in selfish sins. As Israel of old lived under the constant impression that they would again behold the visible glory of the Eternal, so His people now should live as men waiting for a second manifestation of His glory.

Zealous of good works.—The man who hopes to see the epiphany of Jesus his Lord and Love in glory will struggle zealously with hand and brain to live his life in such a manner that he may meet his Lord, when He comes in glory, with joy. It was a people composed of such “zealots” of goodness, of men longing for His sake to do their utmost for His cause, that our great God and Saviour wished to purify unto Himself.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Ver. 14. That he might redeem us] God will have the price of Christ’s blood out; he will thoroughly purge us.

A peculiar people] Gr. A people that comprehend all that God sets any store by, that contain all his gettings; called elsewhere the people of acquisition, περιουσιος, 1Pe 2:9. The word here used Jerome saith he sought for among human authors, and could not find it. Therefore some think the Septuagint feigned this, and επιουσιον, used also in the Lord’s prayer. Theophylact saith it signifieth such a people as are conversant about their master’s business, procuring of wealth and riches for him.

Zealous of good works] Give God thine affections, else thine actions are stillborn, and have no life in them. Now zeal is the extreme heat of all the affections, when they are seething or hissing hot, as the apostle’s word is, Rom 12:12, when we love God and his people out of a pure heart fervently, ζεοντες. Non amat qui non zelat, saith Austin, he loveth not at all in God’s account, whose love is not ardent, desires eager, delights ravishing, hopes longing, hatred deadly, anger fierce, grief deep, fear terrible, voice, eyes, hands, gestures, actions, all lively, as in holy Bucholcer, Luther, Laurentius, Athanasius, Ignatius, Paul, Baruch: Neh 3:20, he earnestly fortified, seipsum accendit; he burst out into a holy heat, he wrought with a kind of anger against himself and others, because the work went on no faster. He was not of his temper that said, Deum colo, uti par est, I go as far for God as in discretion it is fit. Religiosum oportet esse, sed non religantem; such and such are more precise than wise. The reserved professor never shows himself but at halt-light; he follows Christ but afar off, as Peter, or as the people followed Saul (they tremble after him, 1Sa 13:7); he is afraid of every new step, saying as Caesar at Rubicon, Yet we may go back. Carnal discretion controls his fervency, cools his courage, keeps him that he cannot be zealous of good works, which he doth at the best in a loose, lazy, perfunctory strain, like the pace the Spaniard rides, like Adonikam, that was the last that set foot forward toward the return of the captives, and therefore had his lot below his brethren, Ezr 8:13. Where is now our ancient zeal, heating and whetting (saith a reverend zealot)? Oh, how cold and careless, how dissolute, and dilute are we! May it not be said of most of our hearts and houses, as Isa 47:14, there is not a coal to warm at? May not the old complaint be well renewed, "There is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee?" Isa 64:7. Let God’s love in the work of our redemption be duly pondered (as here), and it will fire us up to a holy contention in godliness.

These things speak and exhort] Lest men should think we should only preach of Christ and grace, preach thou obedience and zeal, saith the apostle.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who gave himself for us - See the notes at Eph 5:2.

That he might redeem us from all iniquity - The word here rendered “redeem” - λυτρόω lutroō, occurs only here and in Luk 24:21; 1Pe 1:18. The noun, however - λύτρον lutron, occurs in Mat 20:28; and Mar 10:45; where it is rendered “ransom;” see it explained in the notes at Mat 20:28. It is here said that the object of his giving himself was to save his people from all iniquity; see this explained in the notes at Mat 1:21.

And purify unto himself -

(1) Purify them, or make them holy. This is the first and leading object; see the notes at Heb 9:14

(2) “Unto himself;” that is, they are no longer to be regarded as their own, but as redeemed for his own service, and for the promotion of his glory; - Notes, 1Co 6:19-20.

A peculiar people - 1Pe 2:9. The word here used (περιούσιος periousios) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means, properly, having abundance; and then one’s own, what is special, or peculiar (Robinson, Lexicon), and here means that they were to be regarded as belonging to the Lord Jesus. It does not mean, as the word would seem to imply - and as is undoubtedly true - that they are to be a unique people in the sense that they are to be unlike others, or to have views and principles unique to themselves; but that they belong to the Saviour in contradistinction from belonging to themselves - “peculiar” or his own in the sense that a man’s property is his own, and does not belong to others. This passage, therefore, should not be used to prove that Christians should be unlike others in their manner of living, but that they belong to Christ as his redeemed people. From that it may indeed be inferred that they should be unlike others, but that is not the direct teaching of the passage.

Zealous of good works - As the result of their redemption; that is, this is one object of their having been redeemed; Notes, Eph 2:10.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

A people, particularly acceptable.[6] St. Jerome translates an egregious or eminent people. He says in the Septuagint it corresponds to segula, which signifies a man’s proper possessions, which he has purchased or chosen for himself. Budeus says it signifies what is rare and uncommon; and it is well translated by the Protestants, a particular people. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Acceptabilem, Greek: periousion a perieimi. St. Jerome says, Egregium, præcipuum. See Deuteronomy vii. 6.; Exodus xix. 5.; Psalm cxxxiv. 4.; Israel in possessionem sibi. See also St. John Chrysostom, Greek: log. i. p. 492. linea 4ta.

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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Who gave himself for us; which great God and Saviour Jesus Christ was not only sent and given by the Father, Joh 3:16, but freely gave up himself to be incarnate, and to die for us, υπερημων, in our stead to die.

That he might redeem us from all iniquity; that by that price he might purchase salvation for us, delivering us both from the guilt and power of sin, who were slaves and captives to our lusts.

And that he might purify unto himself λαον περιουσιον, we translate it a peculiar people; some translate it, an egregious, famous, principal people; others say it signifieth something got by our own labour and industry, and laid up for our own use; others say it signifieth something we have set our hearts and affections upon, in a special, peculiar manner.

Zealous of good works; studious to do, and warmly pursuing, all such works as are acceptable to God, and profitable to ourselves and others.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. The judge is a saviour, for he who sits upon the throne once hung upon the cross.

Gave himself—Note, Joh_10:17-18.

For us—In behalf of us.

That he might—The moralizing and sanctifying effect of Christ’s death is here alone specified, because it is the moral model of 1-10 that St. Paul is here illustrating. This is the manward effect of the atonement, but not its whole effect.

Redeem us—Ransom. The Greek verb is the same root as lutron, used by Christ himself in Mat_20:28, and antilutron, used by St. Paul in 1Ti_2:6, on which passages see our notes.

A peculiar people—Wholly unlike the people of Tit_1:10-16; especially unlike the great mass of the Cretans characterized in Tit_1:12; and inferentially unlike the mass of an unregenerate world, and peculiar in being exceptionally, not unto every good work reprobate, (Tit_1:16) but zealous of good works. These contrasted words conclude the contrasted picture of each people. The word peculiar is derived from the Latin peculium, signifying a property or possession reserved as specially one’s own; sometimes the reserve property a slave was allowed to have as his. Similar is the meaning of the Greek word here, and it emphatically designates this people as peculiarly his own.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A people for his own possession for a peculiar people, A.V Who gave himself for us. The resemblance in thought and diction to 1Ti_2:3-6 has been already pointed out. "Who gave himself" (ov edwken eauton ) is there expressed by o doun , and "that he might redeem us" (ina lutrwshtai hmav) by antilutron upentwn . (For the great truths contained in the words "who gave himself," (Joh_10:11, Joh_10:17, 18 Gal_1:4 Eph_5:2, 25 1Pe_2:24 Heb_9:14) The voluntary offering of himself is also implied in the office of our Lord as High Priest. (Heb_9:11-14) For us (upe); on our behalf; not exactly synonymous with anti hmwn , "in our stead." Both phrases, however, are used of our redemption by Jesus Christ. We find uper in Luk_22:19, 20 Joh_6:51:10:11, 15 11:50-52 15:13 18:14 Rom_5:6, 8 8:32 1Co_5:7 2Co_5:14, 2Co_5:15, 21 Gal_1:4 Eph_5:2, 25 1Th_3:10 Heb_2:9 1Pe_2:21 1Pe_3:18 1Pe_4:1 1Jn_3:16: and we find anti in Mat_20:28 and Mar_10:45, and in antilutron , 1Ti_2:6. The literal meaning of uper is "in defense of," and hence generally "on behalf of," "for the good of." The primary idea of anti is "standing opposite," and hence it denotes "exchange," "price," "worth," "instead," etc. Redeem (lutrwshtai); as 1Pe_1:18; common in classical Greek. In the middle voice, as here, it means "to release by payment of a ransom;" in the active voice, "to release on receipt of a ransom." In 1Pe_1:18 the ransom price is stated, viz. "the precious blood of Christ;" as in Mat_20:28 it is "the life of the Son of man." The effect of this redemption is not merely deliverance from the penalty of sin, but from its power also, as appears by the following words: "a peculiar people, zealous of good works," and by the passage in St. Peter above referred to. Purify (kayarish); as very frequently in the New Testament of cleansing lepers, the outside of the platter, etc., cleansing the Gentiles, (Act_10:15) putting away all sin, (2Co_7:1) cleansing the Church, (Eph_5:26) purging the conscience, (Heb_9:14) etc. The iniquity just spoken of was a defilement; the redemption from iniquity removed that defilement. The blood of Jesus Christ, the price paid for the redemption, was the instrument of cleansing. (1Jn_1:7, 1Jn_1:9) A people for his own possession (kaosion); only here in the New Testament, but frequent in the LXX, coupled, as here, with laov , (Exo_19:5 Deu_7:6 Deu_14:2 Deu_26:18) to express the Hebrew hLgus or hLgus a people the peculiar property, or treasure, of God; "peculiar" being derived from the Latin peculium, one"s own private property, reserved for one"s own private use. The Authorized Version "peculiar" expresses the sense exactly, and the periousiov of our text and of the LXX, from whom it is borrowed, is meant to define either that special reserved portion of a man"s property over and above what he spends for ordinary expenses, which nobody can interfere with, or those jewels on which he sets a special value, and places safely in his treasury. In 1Pe_2:10 laohsin ("a peculiar people," Authorized Version) means the same thing, that being the LXX translation of the same Hebrew word, hLgus, in Mal_3:17 ("jewels," Authorized Version), "They shall be my reserved portion or possession." The application of the phrase, laosion , descriptive in the Old Testament of Israel, to the Church of Christ, is very instructive. The passage in 1Pe_2:10 is exactly analogous, as is the phrase, "the Israel of God". (Gal_6:16) Zealous (zhlwthv); as Act_21:20 Act_22:3 1Co_14:12 Gal_1:14. From its special application to those who were zealous for the Law of Moses it became the name of the sect or party of the Zealots who played such a terrible part in the Jewish war. (see Luk_4:15) Canaanite (Mat_10:4 Mar_3:18) is the Hebrew for Zhlwthv . Zeal for good works is the indispensable mark of God"s peculiar people, the inseparable fruit of the redemption and purification which is by the blood of Jesus Christ. (comp. 1Pe_1:2)

The purport and extent of Christ"s Saviorship.

Mark

I THE PERSON WHO GAVE HIMSELF FOR US. "Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Here the atonement is connected with the Deity of the Savior, as if to showy that the true Godhead of the Son gave infinite value to his sufferings.

II THE ATONING WORK. "Who gave himself for us." Two things are here implied.

1. Priestly action. For he "gave himself" freely, the language being borrowed from Levitical worship. That typical economy could not unite priest and victim as they were united in Christ. The Father is often said to have given his Son; but the Son here gives himself, the priestly action exhibiting at once immeasurable love and voluntary obedience. He is himself "the unspeakable Gift the best of all gifts to man.

2. It was a vicarious action. For he "gave himself for us," the words in the original signifying rather for our benefit than in our stead; but, from the nature of the case, the gift was substitutionary, that it might be for our benefit. When we were "in all iniquity," and so exposed to Divine wrath, our Surety permitted that iniquity to be charged to himself.

III THE DESIGN OF THE ATONING WORK OF CHRIST. "To redeem us from all iniquity, and purify us to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works!" It was a twofold design.

1. A redemption from all iniquity.

(1) The redemption signifies deliverance by the payment of a price. Here there is a clear causal connection between Christ"s blood as the ransom price and the redemption. This is Scripture usage. (1Pe_1:18 Rev_5:9 Gal_3:13)

(2) The scope of this redemption. It is "from all iniquity." This is to be understood under a double aspect.

(a) The iniquity includes all sin, considered as guilt and as entailing the curse of the Divine Law. His redeeming sacrifice dissolved the connection between our sin and our liability to punishment on account of it.

(b) The iniquity includes all sin as morally evil, and in this sense the redemption delivers his people from all impurity.

2. The purification of a peculiar people for himself.

(1) The primary signification is sacrificial; for the term "purify," like the cognate terms sanctify, sprinkle, wash, cleanse, points to the effect produced by sacrifice upon those defiled by sin. These are now, by the blood of Christ, readmitted to fellowship with God. Thus believers, like Israel of old, obtain a new standing.

(2) The design of redemption is to consecrate a people for holy service, for priestly worship, in separation from the world. Thus they are "a peculiar people," not singular or eccentric, but his peculiar treasure, held to be most precious, and kept with all Divine care.

(3) This people is separated to good works of good works," because partakers of the Spirit of holiness, (Rom_1:4) and of the sanctification of the Spirit. (1Pe_1:2) This blessed fruit is worthy of a dedicated people. They must be zealots for practical holiness, for they Sad their best motives in two advents. T.C.

The giving of the self.

This is the most beautiful of the sentences in this Epistle. Christ came not merely to teach, or to reveal the fatherhood of God, but to give himself.

I HE DID THIS IN HIS LIFE. All his exquisite sensibilities were bruised in a world of selfishness and sin. The sorrows and griefs of men hurt him. He did not merely give his thoughts, or give his time, or give his infinite help. He "gave himself.

II HE DID THIS IS HIS DEATH. As our Sacrifice he gave himself, "that he might redeem us from all iniquity;" not from guilt alone, but from every form of evil. The perfectly voluntary character of our Savior"s redemptive mission is seen in such expressions as "I come to do thy will, O God," and when concerning his life he says, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." This voluntarism on his part itself destroys all those critical objections to the atonement which were once raised against the suffering of the innocent one for the guilty; for, in the first place, Christ "gives himself," and, in the second place, he does it for a worthy end; not that he may appease the wrath of his Father, but that he may honor his moral government by his perfect obedience unto death, and that he may redeem men from more than the curse of the Law, viz. from all iniquity. Thus, again, the end of the gospel is character that this earth may be as the garden of the Lord, in which all iniquity may be downtrodden and destroyed. W.M.S.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who gave himself for us - To die in our stead. That he might redeem us - Miserable bondslaves, as well from the power and the very being, as from the guilt, of all our sins.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Ver. 14. In this verse we have an expansion of the term Saviour applied to Christ, so presented as to bring out a fresh exhibition of the grand moral aim contemplated in the grace of the gospel: Who gave Himself for us—Himself, ἑαυτὸν, as contradistinguished from any inferior gift, and that for us, ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, not exactly in our room or stead (which ἀντὶ ἡμῶν would have expressed), but in our behalf It was altogether in our interest that the great self-sacrificing deed was done; and in what respect is immediately stated: in order that He might redeem—λυτρώσηται, by the paying of a ransom free—us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. It is what may be called the redemptive, not the atoning or propitiatory aspect of Christ’s work, which is here brought into view, though the two are very closely interconnected, and the one now under consideration presupposes and is founded upon the other; for it is only by virtue of the reconciliation with God, effected through the propitiatory death of Christ, that there is attained by the sinner such a participation in the life of Christ, and such renewing and strengthening aid from the Spirit of grace, as may enable him to break the bonds of his spiritual captivity, and rise into the pure and glorious liberty of God’s children. Having through His obedience unto death paid the costly ransom through which this happy change is accomplished, Christ is therefore said to have redeemed from iniquity those who share in His salvation, and purified them to Himself as a peculiar people—λαὸν περιούσιον, a people over and above, occupying a position separate and peculiar, like one’s peculium or special treasure. The expression, as used here, is taken from Exo 19:5, Deu 7:6, Deu 14:2, where the Sept. gives it as the equivalent of the Heb. segullah (סְגֻלָּה), treasure, or peculiar possession. In meaning, it substantially coincides with the λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν of 1Pe 2:9, a people for doing about, preparing, and fashioning for one’s special use, hence peculiar (οἰκεῖον, Theodoret). Jerome, with substantial correctness, and on the ground of those Old Testament passages having explained the phrase, adds: “Rightly, therefore, Christ Jesus, our Great God and Saviour, redeemed us by His blood, in order that He might make a Christian people peculiar to Himself, who should then indeed be peculiar, if they proved to be zealous of good works.” So that while the direct subject of the passage is sanctification, this is here, as in New Testament Scripture generally, made to spring out of that which is primarily the ground of our justification and peace with God.

Patrick Fairbairn — An Exposition of Ezekiel (1851), Jonah (1849), and The Pastoral Epistles (1874) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

redeem

Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:24").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. The way and manner how Christ came to be our Saviour, he gave himself for us.

Note, 1. The giver, Christ, he gave. 2. The gift, himself. 3. The persons for whom he gave himself, for us.

Learn, 1. That all that Jesus Christ suffered he did sustain and undergo freely and voluntarily. 2. That that which Christ gave for our redemption was himself. 3. That it was especially for his church, that he gave himself, who gave himself for us.

Observe, 2. The great ends for which Christ gave himself for his church, and they are two: 1. To redeem them from all iniquity. 2. To purify them a peculiar people to himself.

1. To redeem them from iniquity: redemption supposes a thraldom and bondage; redemption from iniquity supposes a thraldom and bondage to sin and iniquity: our Redeemer therefore is Jesus Christ, and by dying for us, he did, and only could, redeem us. He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity.

2. Another end of Christ’s redeeming us, is to purify us to himself a peculiar people;

Here note, That as redemption did presuppose a bondage, so purification supposes an uncleanness, that is, sin.

Note, 2. That Christ’s redeemed people are a purified people, and a peculiar people, possessed by the Spirit of Christ with a zeal for good works.

Note, 3. That it was not only for us that Christ redeemed and purified us a peculiar people to himself, but ultimately for himself, and for his own and his Father’s glory and complacency; that he might purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. Who gave himself. The Lord who will appear gave the greatest of all things, himself, for us. That he might redeem us. To deliver us from sin, not only from its power, but its penalty. A peculiar people. Separate, chosen, holy in life. The Jews were, under the old covenant, a peculiar people; now, Christians, are God's Israel.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

gave himself for us

This refers to Jesus dying willingly. AT: "gave himself to die for us" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

to redeem us from all lawlessness

Paul speaks of Jesus as if he were setting slaves free from their evil master. (See: Metaphor)

a special people

A group of people that he treasures.

are eager

"have a strong desire"

translationWords

Jesus

lawful

pure

people group

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

14. ὃς ἔδωκεν ἑαυτόν] 1Ti 2:6, Gal 1:4, based on the Lord’s own saying, Mar 10:45. The gift is the gift of the whole life, but principally of the life surrendered in death; cf. 1Co 11:23 παρεδίδετο, Php 2:8, Eph 5:25.

ἵνα λυτρώσηται . . . περιούσιον] a reminiscence of several O.T. passages, Exo 19:5, Exo 23:22 ἔσεσθέ μοι λαὸς περιούσιος ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἐθνῶν: 2 S 7:23 τοῦ λυτρώσασθαι αὐτῷ λαόν (cf. Exo 15:13, 1Ch 17:21): Psa 130:8 καὶ αὐτὸς λυτρώσεται τὸν Ἰσραὴλ ἐκ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτοῦ: Eze 37:23 ῥύσομαι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτῶν, ὧν ἡμάρτοσαν ἐν αὐταῖς καὶ καθαριῶ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔσονται μοι εἰς λαόν.

λυτρώσηται] (Luk 24:21, Luk 24:1 P 1:18 only in N.T., but very frequent in LXX). “Rescue,” “deliver,” though the previous words ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν suggest the further idea of ransom as lying in the background.

ἀπὸ πάσης ἀνομίας] As from Egyptian bondage (Exo 15:18) and from Babylon (Isa 44:22-24) in the past: hence the main thought is rescue from the power, not from the guilt of sin.

καθαρίσῃ] from Eze 37:23 (supra). The original reference was probably to the sprinkling of the people with the blood of the covenant, cf. Exo 23:22, Exo 23:24:8; so that the thought is still of death: cleanse with his own blood, 1Jn 1:7 τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας: ibid.9 ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας: Heb 9:14-22, Heb 9:1 P 1:2 (with Hort’s note): Justin M. Apol. i. 32, διʼ αἵματος καθαίρων τοὺς πιστεύοντας: c. Tryph. 13.

The word also looks back to 1:15; there is a cleansing needed, but no Jewish ceremonial cleansing to be repeated from time to time, but a cleansing of the heart (cf. Act 15:9) which has been effected by Christ Himself: perhaps it also anticipates 3:5 and contains a reference to the cleansing of baptism; cf. Eph 5:25, Eph 5:26, 1Co 6:11.

περιούσιον] (= Hebr. סְגֻלָּה, “set apart,” “reserved,” Exo 19:5, Deu 7:6, Deu 14:2, Deu 26:18) is not found except in the LXX, prob. signifying “that which is over and above,” the special portion which a conqueror took for himself before the spoil was divided, or the first-fruits which the owner takes from his threshing floor (cf. Clem. Rom. c. 29). It is also translated λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν (Mal 3:17, Mal 3:1 P 2:9); ἡ περιποίησις (Eph 1:14) and τὴν ἐκκησίαν ἣν περιεποιήσατο (Act 20:28) are virtually translations of the same word. It implies the thought of Christ as a triumphant king. (For full discussion of the word, vide Hort on 1 P 2:9; Lightfoot, Revision of N.T., Appendix.)

The Latin translations vary: “abundantem,” Clarom.; “acceptabilem,” Vulg.; “egregium,” Jerome; “proprium,” Theodore: cf. “domesticam Dei gentem,” Tert. Rev_18Rev_18. According to Jerome, Symmachus was the first to use the Latin word peculiarem, transliterating it into Greek; and from him Jerome, though leaving “acceptabilem” here and “populus adquisitionis” in 1 P 2:9, used it in the O.T., and it has come thence into our English versions. It is derived from the peculium, the private property of a slave.

ζηλωτὴν καλῶν ἔργων] “æmulatorem,” O.L.; “sectatorem,” Vulg.; “a pursuer,” Rheims; “fervently given to good works,” Tynd. Israel had been a peculiar people, to keep God’s commandments (Deu 26:18); the Christian Church has to have an eager enthusiasm for and to take the lead in all that is excellent, in all that will “adorn” the doctrine. Cf. τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ζηλωταί, 1 P 3:13; and contrast ζηλωταὶ τοῦ νόμου, Act 21:20; ζηλωτὴς τῶν πατρικῶν μου παραδόσεων, Gal 1:14. This contrast may be conscious here, cf. 1:14, 15, 1Ti 1:7. Epictetus would have each man ὡς θεοῦ ζηλωτὴν πάντα ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν, ii. 14. 13. The phrase ζηλωταὶ τῶν καλλίστων is found in inscriptions more than once (M.M. s.v.).

The conception of the Church, as the chosen people, which has taken the place of and has to do the work of the Jewish nation, is specially marked in 1 Peter, but it is equally clear in St. Paul; cf. Gal 6:16 “the Israel of God”; Php 3:3 ἡμεῖς ἐσμὲν ἡ περιτομή, and it underlies the Lord’s choice of twelve apostles and His building a new ἐκκλησία.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.