Titus lesson 9 cont.

We are on lesson 9 of the Titus class. These are the verses. I'm going to address the last two. Myles took the first two, but I'll read the full passage, Titus 2, 11 through 14. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds." I think we got through the first four questions and we're now on question five. So what is the blessed hope that we have? So in verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior.

So I guess what I started out on was, and said this lesson that Mike put together is more of a word study than anything else, I think. Instead of more contextual things, it's more looking at the words and how that expands the meaning of the scripture, this section of scripture. So I looked at blessed. Actually, maybe I should ask you before I get into it.

What does blessed mean? We use it all the time. It's a common Christian word. You're blessed. Oh, may the Lord bless you. What does that mean? Nobody has been blessed. Oh, no. So what do we have for blessed? I mean, I'm just pulling up. Strong's, but possessing the favor of God. Mm hmm. Is one thing. Yep. Others.

Otherwise, I'll go to Zodiatis, who usually takes strongs and expands on it. Other thoughts? We use it all the time, but do we really know what it means? I think part of the word, and I probably should have put it in there, we have a tendency to automatically view earthly benefits as spiritual blessings. What he's talking about here...

Well, I'll get to that. The word blessed. Bless, anything? Anything else on blessed? Because I'll get to that, what he's asking for here. So I just want to look at the word to where it says blessed. Blessed hope, and what does that really mean for us? So, not hearing anything else from Zodiatus. The Greek word for blessed is makarios.

The believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit because of Christ and as a result should be fully satisfied no matter the circumstances. You know, thinking about that over the prayer requests and things, and some of these long trials for us. No matter what the circumstances, in blessings and in trials.

Mercurius differs from the word happy in that the person is happy who has good luck. From the root, hap, meaning luck is a favorable circumstance. To be mercurius, blessed, is equivalent to having God's kingdom within one's heart. That's from Matthew 5, 3 and 10. Aristotle contrasts Mercurius to Endes, another word, the needy one. Mercurius is the one who is in the world, yet independent of the world. His satisfaction comes from God and not from favorable circumstances.

I think that's what we'll get to in what this is. So, now we have a blessed satisfaction from God, hope. Hope here, as the Greek word means hope, stands for an object, hoping for an object. So what is the object of our blessed hope from this passage? Jesus. Well, thank you, Luke Jenkins. Luke is smiling for some reason right now. That's the answer to everything. Jesus! Jesus! So, a little more than that. From the passage, it should be easy.

Hope means something that is guaranteed for us in the future, but not right now. A certainty of an action in the future for the Christian. Hope in the world is, yeah, 50-50 luck, you know, rabbit's foot. lucky numbers, whatever, you know. So, what is the object here of our blessed hope? The appearing? The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. Looking for the blessing.

So, yes, the hope we have is the return of the Lord. So, this is talking about the return of the Lord to retrieve His Church. It is one that is prosperous, it is filled with richness, benefits, and good things, with the Lord's return. So our blessed hope, the hope that we have, the certainty that we have, is the return of the Lord.

That's the key. That's what our blessed hope is. And again, the definition is, satisfaction comes from God and not from favorable circumstances. So this is a certainty from God that Christ will return. That's the blessed hope. That's the hope. That's the certainty that Christ will return.

It's not something that we think it may happen. We don't know. We don't know when, but it's going to happen. So that's the certainty that we have, is that he will return. Now, I'll get to what Mike was kind of getting ahead on a little bit, is question six.

Is it the glorious appearing or the appearing of the glory? Do you understand the difference on that? So, from the New King James, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, or from the NSAB, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. Are those the same? The glorious appearing or the appearing of the glory?

Are those the same? Come on. Somebody be brave. No, they're the same. Wouldn't they be the same? They're wrapped up in the same person. Okay. So we have one that says they're the same. Do we have a contrary that says it's not the same? Chickens. Come on now. Anybody brave enough? What? I'd say no. No. Oh, we have a no. JD's been challenged. Yay. Yay. Yay.

Now I give you, now you have to explain your answers. Why do you think it's different? Well, just based on the wording, saying glorious appearing means that the appearing is in this big glorious way, or the appearing is of the glory and it's showing The glory is coming just the way it comes, not this big show, is how I would read that. Ooh, JD. Now yours. Yeah, I think it's a source question, right? Like, where does glory, where is glory sourced? It's sourced in a person. You can't have glory without a person. And in this case, it's the Lord Jesus.

So I'm not, I'm not grammatically caught up, but that's my gut answer. I go with no. And if you look at it, it is different. If you look at the glorious appearing, it could be a glorious appearing of, oh jeez, I don't know how to say it. Like, just because we mentioned this morning, Taylor Swift, the glorious appearing.

She shows up on stage. Oh, glorious, glorious thing, you know. You know, but it's not the same glorious, but I'm just saying it's seeing something fantastic. That's what you're seeing. A glorious appearing of the Lord. It's glorious, but is that the same as the appearing of the glory? See the difference? You explained it. It's the glory that's appearing, not that it's glorious. It's the appearing of the glory of the Lord. So that's two different things. Does everybody understand that, JD? Nope. No, I don't agree. Let me take a stab at it. Okay, Mike's going to stab at it. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, His glory was hidden for the most part, except for the amount of transfiguration a little bit. Right. When he rose from the dead, he instructed Mary not to identify with him because he hadn't been glorified.

So what you're looking at, when Paul met him on the road to Damascus, he met a human being, a man, the God-man. who God's glory had been fully manifested in his person and it was visible and so it's, I mean, it has to do with the fact that God's glory is manifested and you can see it and that's what we're waiting for. Jesus is going to return, but if he doesn't return glorious, big deal.

Well, again, I think it's really like we speak of the glory of the Lord. That's a specific thing, the glory of the Lord. A glorious appearing is different in that that's not stating the appearance of the glory of the Lord. It's a subtle difference, but I think an important one, actually. that a glorious appearing could be, you know, an unbelievable event. But appearing of the glory of the Lord is different.

J.D.? I now understand. So, yeah, what I'm hearing is that you can look at the Lord Jesus. He's a lamb, right? He is the Savior. That's what He is. That's His function. This looking has to do with the lion, so to speak, right? So now you've got him revealing the glory that he has withheld while on this earth during the time he was here. So in that way, I understand it. Yeah, it's the glory is the key that Donna.

Well, I was thinking, you know, like you used to Taylor Swift. The reason she has a glorious appearing is because she spent a heck of a lot of money That is another himself. That is himself, yeah. But it's, you know, my Taylor Swift, terrible, terrible. But it's the fanfare. I mean, she's an unbelievable show person, I guess. I haven't seen all the stuff, but all I hear, I hear just amazing, you know, and everybody's just in awe of this glorious show.

And that's the difference, I think, the glorious appearing versus appearing of the glory. Taylor Swift does not have the glory of God. Only Christ has that in God. So we know glorious appearing, Taylor Swift, and Jesus Christ. Let me go get all those girls so they can listen. Bring them in. They need an updating of what is glorious and what is not glorious. I knew I shouldn't have done that. You see how much hesitation I had before I even said that? I just knew that I was going to regret that.

So now, the Greek word for appearing is epiphaneia, and it's used only by Paul for the second and future appearance of the Lord. So again, the Greek gives us a little bit of a backup of the fact that it's the glory of his return, not just a really cool thing that's going to happen, some glorious event. Which, his return will be a glorious event, but it's the appearing of the glory. Mike had this in his notes, appearing the epiphany, whatever, which was used by the pagan Greeks of the glorious manifestation of their gods. Here it is used of the glory that will accompany the return of the Lord Jesus. The Greek does not speak of the glorious appearing, it is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So again, between Taylor Swift and Jesus Christ, I think we've made the distinction here. Good? All right, question seven.

In verse 14, what does the word for reveal to us? So out of the NASB, verse 14, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. So, it's kind of interesting, in the NASB translation, four is brought out four different times.

In the Greek manuscript, it's only used once. So, the three additional fours are implied by the context and by the Greek wording. They're implied. The Greek word for for is hupere. It is a preposition of substitutionary atonement. It means for the sake of, in behalf of, instead of, or to give. So, it's kind of interesting. I should have asked, what is the definition of for?

I don't know if anybody would really be able to explain that other than what probably was just here in Greek. So Jesus gave himself for what or why? What's first and foremost? What's who? What? Who? Okay, well, so yeah, so what is, what did he give himself for?

The object is us. Us, that's, yeah, us. First and foremost, us. in verse 14, who gave himself for us. And that is the one that's in the Greek translation in the manuscript, is that one. That one is no question. It is for us. He gave himself for us believers. So no question about the first one.

So what about the other three, the implied force, to redeem us from every lawless deed, to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. What about the other ones? His giving is twofold, right? It is for the object, but it also has a receiving to himself of what he possesses based on his giving, right?

And that's grace. It's not just, I did this for you, I did this for you and for me in this way. And then he spells out what that effect is on himself. I think a better translation is, on behalf of. Because it identifies, it expands on the word for. He was crucified for me, which means he was crucified on my behalf, in my substitute.

And when you see that, see it from that perspective, it's not just, well, he did it for me. He did it on behalf of me. I can do you a favor that doesn't cost me anything. But if I do you a favor that costs me something, you don't have to pay the penalty. I'm prepared. So kind of interesting in this. So first of all, I had a question.

Do you realize Christ gave himself up for all of these things? For us, all these different things to redeem us from every lawless deed, to purify his own possession for good deeds. him giving himself up, those are what comes to us. I think the other interesting part is, think about this, when you read it this way, you know, to redeem, he, let me go back up here, who gave himself for us, that's the key, he gave himself up for us.

But then it's interesting to purify for what? What does it say? people. No. What does it say? To purify what? Himself. For himself. Right. He did this for him. There's a selfish, I hesitate to say that word, but he is looking for the possession of his people. Right. That's what he wants. We said this before, you know, this is, he's purifying himself He's purifying us, but it's only for himself to receive a people who have been purified. For people for his, what? For his own possession. That's what he did it for.

Ultimately, what is the ultimate thing that we will accomplish? We'll glorify God. Ultimately, we glorify God. So he's getting for himself a possession, us, purified, for his own possession, and then the last is for us to do good deeds here. So, but it's kind of interesting, it's for him. We kind of take it, what's for us? But he redeemed, he gave himself up for us to redeem us from every lawless deed so he could accept us to purify for himself a people for his own possession So those are mainly all the things that he's accomplishing by coming back and giving us all this. Yeah. I think it's just this concept you're talking about is all through all his epistles.

The Lord Jesus desired to have, well, if you go back to Romans chapter one, it talks about the wrath of God revealed from heaven to all ungodliness. It doesn't say sinfulness. It says ungodliness. So if you're not like God, you don't belong. Put it that way. So he goes through this process of becoming a man and paying the penalty for the sins of his creatures. And he paves the way so that we can be like him. Because if you're not like him, you're not going to be with him. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, yeah, when we get rid of these sinful bodies, we will have an unsinful... Well, and even as we sit here today, from a positional standpoint, we are. Yeah. But he goes a step further here.

He says, well, that you would be zealous for good works without that re-creation in Christ, there is no zeal for how it works. It's all self-works. I know when you look at, you start thinking about God's glory and then he does all these things for himself, because I live in, I have a signature, I look at it from, well that's kind of selfish, isn't it? But when you begin to understand exactly what he's done and why he is doing it, why he did it, so that I can be with Him, like Him for eternity, then it's not selfish.

No, and that's when you look at, you know, the intimacy of John 17, the union. He wants that union. He wants the same union with God the Father, the same union with us, that same intimacy with Him. Well, He's, through His giving us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it's that to get us from the lawless deeds, to purify for Himself. He's doing it so we can have that fellowship with him now and eternally.

But it's interesting. It does sound selfish, but it's like he desires us so much that he gave himself up. You got to go back to the start of the sentence or the verse or this section. Why did he give himself up? So he can have a possession for himself, which is glorious. It's all about him bringing us in, his love for us and his care and wanting us to be in that union. That's why he gave it up. that whole understanding of His motives is not appreciated in Christianity very much. Exactly. That's, I think, the purpose of this, is to understand, you know, what this means. So, Donna?

I was thinking of Ephesians 2.14, for He is our peace, who hath made both one, and has broken down the middle wall and partitioned between us. That's what He did. And why? To bring us in. To bring us in. You know, we always look at it from, what do we get out of it? Or all these things, you know, we're going to be purified. We're going to get off. But what is it?

He's ultimately wanting us to have the fellowship, that union with him. That's what he wants. And that's what he desires. And that's why he gave himself up for us. So no, it's an awesome thought. You know, he loves us that much. Why do you think this mattered to Titus? Or why do you think Paul was explaining this aspect of ministry to Titus? I think for the very reason what I just explained is for them to understand that the God wants to bring them in. He loves them. And if he does, you're going to be zealous for good works. The end result is, you know, because remember this is about elders and we started with elders now about, you know, the different aspects of the Cretans and now we're into this, you know, what is it?

This 11 through 14 is a key summary section after all of that that just says, The reason is all of this is that God died for you to bring you in and have this fellowship He's gonna purify you he's gonna he's gonna bring you in he's gonna have this relationship with you I think is the ultimate one because it the you know if we go back to the beginning of that 11 through 14 Remember it said for the 11 Titus 2.11, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness, worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

Remember who the Cretans are. They're lying scum dogs. You know, they are not good people. So, he's appeared bringing salvation to even these guys, Titus. Understand that you're bringing salvation to even these guys you're dealing with, these Cretans.

And to instruct them to deny all the things that they're doing. Ungodliness, worldly desires, live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. He's talking to the Cretans about that. And then, you know, why did he do it? To redeem those Cretans that you think are Cretans, liars, terrible people. He loves them so much and wants to bring them in. It's his own possession. I think that's what he's trying to teach them. is that Titus is living in a world that is not real cool in Crete.

And I think this is an encouragement to say they can, through Christ, they can deny ungodliness, righteousness, or unrighteousness, all this stuff, and then have a union with God. It almost comes off as a definition of ministry, Christian ministry. That's what I'm saying. I think this is for, you know, again, when you bring it up, this is Paul to Titus in Crete. Yeah. But it's applicable to us anywhere. Yeah, we got Cretans. Yeah, we got Cretans. Yeah. Turn on the news and you're getting the 10 o'clock news from Crete.

When you look at the discussions in Paul's epistles about the rapture and the appearing of the glory, etc., etc., it's designed as part of the motivation to live righteously. To live righteously. And the end result is to have that fellowship with Christ. If you're unrighteous, it's not that you lose your salvation, you lose the fellowship. So if you're living righteously, living sensibly, all the things he just said, you have the relationship. And you're his possession. All right, question eight.

Let's talk about redemption. What does it mean? So, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself the people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. So, what do we know about redeem? What does that word mean?

Anybody? Purchase. What? Purchase? Purchase. Yep. Okay. Anything else? from the great doctrines thing I had here that Christ bought us out of sin, from the penalty of sin from the past, the power of sin in the present, and the presence of sin in the future. Yep. What is it, the three Ps? The power of past, present, and future, or whatever. Good.

So, I have from Zodiatis, when we're looking at words, I go to Zodiatis because he expands on even Strong. Strong has kind of the basic, and then Zodiatis always expands and brings out where it's used in Scripture. So, in the New Testament, actually the word is lutru, l-u-t-r-o-o is the literal translation, or lutruo. Our Greek is terrible, so we need Hal back to give us a Greek class so I can pronounce these things.

In the New Testament used in the middle voice in Luke 24 21 Titus 2 14 it denotes that aspects of the Savior's work wherein he appears as the Redeemer of Mankind from bondage So you realize? Zodiac is violated my rule You can't do that. You can't use redeemed to explain redeemed. So what do I usually do?

I Thank you. Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Actually, I was kind of surprised that it came out fairly accurate to what the biblical translation is. So these were from Merriam-Webster. To buy back, repurchase, to get or win back, to free from what distresses or harms, such as to free from captivity by payment of ransom, to extricate from or help overcome something detrimental, to release from blame or debt, clear, to free from the consequences of sin. How do you like that in the Merriam-Webster dictionary? And the next is to change for better, reform, repair, restore. And then the subset of that, to free from a lien by payment of an amount secured thereby, to remove the obligation of by payment, to exchange for something of value, to make good or fulfill. Those aren't really bad, you know, definitions for the biblical sense here. It's a purchase, buyback, which you were saying basically that the purchase, ransom, pay for, get out of a bad situation, we're slaves to sin, all those things.

So the redeemed, actually, the definitions kind of all seem to portray the same thing that's being brought out in the Titus 2.14.

Yeah. In fact, it says, the active verb is used not of him who gives, but of him who to release on receipt of a ransom. Who's the receiver? We are. Right. We are the one to receive the payment for what we did the sinning. Christ paid for it. And we're extricated from that. We're removed from that. He paid the ransom. He paid it. And that obligation has been removed by Christ.

Mike added these thoughts, which seem to fit the Merriam-Webster definitions. There are three words in the New Testament translated redeemed, which tell the story of the cross. The first is, and I blow all that out, to buy a slave in the marketplace in 1 Corinthians 6.22, 2 Peter 2.1, Revelation 5.9. The slave market is the earth. All the unsaved are slaves of sin and Satan. Our Lord paid the penalty for sin at the cross. Those who trust in His blood belong to Him as His bond slaves. The second is ex-aggrudso, thus, to buy out of the slave market.

Galatians 3.13 and 4 and 5. The saved are never to be put up for sale in any slave market again. They belong to the Lord Jesus forever. And then the third is letruo, to set free by payment of ransom.

That's in this instance, Titus 2.14 and 1 Peter 1.18.

The Lord's slaves are set free from sin and their old master Satan to experience in their lives that for which God created them. Fellowship with service to God. So again, it's put it back in the end of the sentence, who gave himself up to redeem for us. So he gave himself up what? to buy us out of the slave market, to redeem us, to bring us out of what is this world system that is bound to Satan. He bought us out of that system and brought us into himself.

So, again, it's the payment. And we didn't... Cheryl, you said you had to pay a fine. You did the crime and you had to pay the fine that time. In this instance, you did the crime and somebody else paid for it. And we get out free, never to be put in that situation again. What's that in legal? There's no double jeopardy, double jeopardy. You can never be put back for the same crime. We can never be put back in the slave market again, the worldly slave market.

We've been bought out, brought into Christ. So again, the reason he gave himself up is to redeem us. Because there's no way we got out of the slave market that we were in. The only way is through Christ paying that price for us. And that price was his death. His death on the cross. Yeah. Any other thoughts before we move on?

I was just going to say that There's certainly the payment and the levity of what Christ did for us, but you mentioned the word freedom, and that's really the result here. It's redeem us. You did that, but what does that do for us? And so being released out of slavery and entering into a new relationship, which is a different form of slavery, bond, servant, but it is a freedom from sin because of his death on the cross that you would not have had had he not paid that price. There's both what he did and then there is what we received. And yeah, that's just a big part of what Titus is being challenged to focus on. Yeah, to let them know. Yeah, to let them know that you are, you have been, as a believer, believers are redeemed.

The ransom has been paid. You are free. You're not under that slavery as you were before. What does that mean to you? Well, Let's talk about lawless deeds and let's talk about some of these other things here. But there is a freedom as a result of that payment that is very critical to that word, I think. I think about two Romans, dead unto sin and alive unto God. That's the translation. You're dead unto sin, you're now alive unto God. We need to close. We're beyond here. We'll close and I guess we've got three more questions for next week. All right, let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you again for each and every day you give to us. We realize again that you're sovereignly dealing with each and every one of us, some in blessings, some in trials. And again, your hand never changes. It's a loving hand that is dealing with each and every one of us. And let's just be strengthened, comforted, and directed by the fact that you're a loving God. In trials, it's not meant out of malice.

It's ultimately for your purposes to conform us to the image of your son and to do these things to purify for your son's sake a possession, us, that we can ultimately have, as we do now, by faith, but ultimately face-to-face fellowship with you and your son. And we just revel in that fact, and the glorious fact that it was a gift, a gracious gift brought out by you after the payment was done, the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, that you then graciously offered us salvation through faith in your Son. So we thank you for all of that, and we just pray that each and every day we glorify you by what we say and do. And now we just commit our day to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.