Angelina said:
Not so much blown away since I am not a Calvinist advocate... :huh: If I am going to be placed in some sort of category I guess I lean more towards Aminianism....
Oz, I don't know what you mean? :huh:
Angelina,
Sorry for my oversight in not explaining the text further. This may be a bit technical for some. Let's try.
Titus 2:11 (ESV) reads, ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’. What is a plain reading of the text saying? When did God’s grace appear? What was it? How did it bring salvation to all people? Are all going to be saved? Is this a verse that promotes universalism (salvation for everyone)?
What is the meaning of 'appeared' (
epiphainw) in this verse? I could not say this better than Gordon Fee, emeritus professor of New Testament at Regent College, Vancouver B C, Canada and editor of Eerdmans’ New International Commentary series on the New Testament. Fee, a very competent Greek exegete, wrote of Titus 2:11,
An explanatory for opens the paragraph and thus closely ties verses 11-14 to 2-10. It proceeds to explain why God’s people should live as exhorted in 2-10 (so that the message from God will not be maligned [v. 5] but instead will be attractive [v. 10]): because the grace of God that brings salvation to all people has appeared.
In the Greek text all of verses 11-14 form a single sentence, of which the grace of God stands as the grammatical subject. But contrary to the NIV (and KJV), Paul does not say that this grace appeared to all men; rather, as almost all other translations have it, and as both Paul’s word order and the usage in 1 Timothy 2:3-6 demand it, what has appeared (see disc. on 1 Tim. 6:14; epiphaneia) is grace from God that offers salvation to all people.
Paul does not indicate here the reference point for this revelation of God’s grace. Most likely he is thinking of the historical revelation effected in the saving event of Christ (v. 14; cf. 2 Tim. 1:9-10), but it could also refer existentially to the time in Crete when Paul and Titus preached the gospel and Cretans understood and accepted the message (cf. 1:3 and 3:3-4). That at least is when the educative dimension of grace, emphasized in verse 12, took place (Fee 1988:194, emphasis in original).
In Titus 2:11-14, the emphasis is as in Titus 3:5-7, that God’s mercy brought salvation through regeneration, renewal of the Holy Spirit, justification and their becoming heirs of hope. This was the readers’ own experience of salvation.
So what appeared in this
epephane, which refers to something becoming visible or making an appearance?
All human beings could not have reached a satisfactory understanding of God’s grace without the manifestation of Jesus Christ through his incarnation and atonement. Titus 2:11 shows the effects of this grace, ‘bringing salvation for
all people’ (ESV). Thus the universality of the salvation offer is made available thanks to Christ’s epiphany.
Its saving effect depends on God’s election and a personal response of faith. The human will is freed for all people in regard to salvation. This is implied by all of the verses in Scripture that exhort people
to turn to God (see Prov 1:23; Isa 31:6; Ezek 14:6; 18:32; Joel 2:13-14; Matt 18:3; Acts 3:19);
to repent (1 Kings 8:47; Matt 3:2; Mark 1:15; Luke 13:3, 5; Acts2:38; 17:30), and
to believe (2 Chron 20:20; Isa 43:10; John 6:29; 14:1; Acts 16:31; Phil 1:29; 1 John 3:23).
Oz