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Posts: 3154
May 25 12 4:34 PM
The context of Titus 2:13 concerning the appearing clearly indicates that there is a reference to one person--our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. John Ankerberg and John Weldon maintained that “even the context of Titus 2:13 shows that one Person, not two, was in Paul’s mind, for Paul wrote of the ‘glorious appearing’ of that Person” (Facts on Jehovah’s Witnesses, p. 24). Gordon Clark noted: “The subject matter is the glorious return of our Lord. One person returns; not the Father, but the Son. Hence the great God and Jesus is the same person” (The Trinity, p. 17). Clark added: “It is difficult in Greek to separate ‘of us’ (our) from ‘the great God’” (Ibid.). In his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, Gordon Clark observed: “A more doctrinal argument is that only Christ appears--the second coming is not a coming of the Father; therefore the great God who appears must be Christ” (p. 224). In his commentary on Titus, John MacArthur asserted: “Our great God and Savior is one of the many plain declarations in Scripture of the deity of Jesus Christ.“ MacArthur also noted that “both of the singular pronouns in the following verse [14] (‘who,‘ hos, and ‘Himself,‘ heauton) refer back to a single person” (p. 120). MacArthur added: “Perhaps most importantly, the New Testament nowhere speaks of the appearing or Second Coming of God the Father but only of the Son” (p. 121). John Gill wrote: “He is called ‘the great God,‘ whose glorious appearing, and not the Father’s, saints are directed to look for; besides, this great God, is explained of Jesus Christ our Saviour in the next clause, Titus 2:13” (Complete Body, pp. 240-241). Francis Turretin noted: “Epiphaneia is never attributed to the Father, but always to Christ. He, whose advent we look for, is said to have given himself for us (Tit. 2:14), which applies to Christ alone” (Institutes, I, p. 284). Consider also 2 Timothy 1:10--”appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” James Buswell noted: “It is clear from the entire New Testament that it is Christ whose glorious appearing is expected: Christ Jesus is our great God and Saviour” (Systematic Theology, p. 104). Concerning this verse in his Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, H. Harvey noted: “The following context, in the relative clause (verse 14), ’who gave himself for us,’ plainly relates only to Christ, but naturally requires us to take the whole preceding expression, ’our Great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,’ as its antecedent” (pp. 139-140). Concerning this verse in his commentary, Robert Horton asserted: “The qualifying description of verse 14, which refer to Jesus Christ, completely overbalances the sentence if Christ is to be separated from ’the great God’” (p. 186).
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