Titus 2:11-15 – The Bigger Picture of Grace
A grace that
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. - Romans 6:11-14
“Salvation is not only a change in position (set free from slavery to sin), but it is also a change in attitude, appetite, ambition, and action. The same grace that redeems us also reforms our lives and makes us godly.”
- Warren Wiersbe
“Grace teaches us that the Creator is better, fuller, and richer than anything that has been created and that we could worship as an idol …Choosing God instead of the immediate and visible pleasures of sin can be tough. It is an act of faith. But faith recognizes that ultimately God in Christ is always better, fuller, and richer.”
- Tim Chester
A grace that
“Since ‘blessed hope’ and “glorious appearance’ are governed by the same article, they refer to the same event. While Jesus was lowly at his first coming, the second coming will be glorious.”
- Andreas Kostenberger
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. - 1 Peter 1:3-5
A grace that
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. - 1 Peter 2:9-10
Christian identity involves a creative act of ‘becoming’ (redemption, purification) that makes a unique quality of ‘being’ possible.”
- Philip Towner