Titus 2:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What hope is this? What reward for our labors? "Awaiting," he says, "the blessed hope and appearing."

Truly, nothing is more blessed, and nothing is more desirable, than such a reward. It cannot even be expressed in words, since the good things to come surpass the mind.

"Awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior." Where are those who say that the Son is less than the Father?

"Of our great God and Savior," says the Apostle. If He saved enemies, what will He not do when He receives those who are pleasing to Him?

"The great God." When he calls God great, he calls Him great not in relation to anything, but absolutely great. After Him no one is great.

Every other being is great only relatively. If relatively, then he is great by comparison, not by nature. But He is great without comparison.

Here is the reward: the Second Coming, truly blessed. He said well, "of glory." He speaks of two appearings.

The first, as was said above, had grace and forgiveness, accomplished with mercy and simplicity. The second is the recompense, which will be revealed with glory.

So also the Gospel says: "When the Son of Man comes in His glory" (Mt 25:31).

Where are those who abase the Son and do not wish to call Him God? Let them hear that He is both God and great.

He is called great as God, not in comparison with something else that is small, but absolutely. He is great in Himself and by nature.

If He saved us when we were enemies, what will He not give when He finds us pleasing to Him?

The great common fast is to abstain from iniquities and from the forbidden pleasures of this world. This is the perfect fast: that we, "denying ungodliness and worldly passions," should live temperately, righteously, and piously in the present age.

What reward does the Apostle promise for this fast? "Awaiting this blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our blessed God and Savior Jesus Christ."

In Latin, cupiditates means passions; the Vulgate uses desideria, desires. Manifestatio means manifestation; the Vulgate has adventus, coming or appearing. The Vulgate has magni, great, in agreement with the Synodal rendering.

Therefore the common Instructor of life, the great Teacher, the Spirit of truth, wisely and skillfully set rewards before us first. In this way, looking beyond the labors now with us, we hasten in thought to enjoy eternal goods.

"Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly" (Ps 1:1).

Thus there is a true Good, which in the proper and primary sense should be called blessed. This is God.

Therefore Paul, intending to mention Christ, says: "at the appearing of our blessed God and Savior Jesus Christ" (cf. 1 Tim 1:11).

For truly blessed is this inexpressible Good, toward which all things are turned and which all things desire. It is the immutable Nature, the sovereign Dignity, the untroubled Life, and the beginningless State.

In Him there is no change, and no reversal touches Him. He is the ever-flowing Fountain, the unfailing Grace, and the inexhaustible Treasure.

It seems to me that the virginal life is a certain image of the blessed life in the age to come. It contains many marks of those good things which, as we hope, are laid up for us.

The truth of this can be seen if we examine it in detail. First, the one who has died completely to sin now lives only for God and no longer bears the fruits of death.

Putting an end to fleshly life as far as possible, he awaits thereafter the blessed reward and the appearing of the great God. He places no interval between himself and God's coming through the production of intervening generations.

Then, in the present life, he enjoys the most excellent of the goods after the resurrection. For the Lord has promised to the righteous after the resurrection a life equal to the angels.

Since the angelic nature is marked by celibacy, the promised goods are already received by the one who shares in the splendors of the saints and imitates the purity of the bodiless powers by a blameless life.

But only awaiting the blessedness of hope and meeting the appearing of the coming of the glory of the great God. This is the same as what Moses said: “the great and terrible God” (cf. Deut 10:17). Or else it means the revelation of the great glory of God. For the Father is not to be revealed on that day, but the Son. If the coming is understood of the Son and not of the Father, then the Apostle called the revelation great, not God. But an error was introduced by copyists, who referred to God what the Apostle everywhere used of the day of revelation, saying: “of the great glory of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.”

The Apostle also gave us the hope of His glorious coming, in which He promised to accomplish the greatest rewards. The Apostle called Christ the great God, exposing the blasphemy of the heretics. By what has already been accomplished, he recalls the Master’s Passion and assures us of the future. The Apostle says that the very One Who according to the flesh derives His lineage from the Jews is the eternal God, in Whom the right-minded glorify the Master of all the living. He handed down the same teaching to us in the letter to the wondrous Titus: “awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

"Awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." He calls the second glorious coming of Christ "the blessed hope," since He comes as great King, Judge, and Rewarder.

He explained the word "hope" by the word "appearing." Thus he called Christ's second descent and appearing among us "hope" because it is the object of our hope and expectation.

He called it "blessed" because it is the object of longing and desire for those worthy of it.

By the words "great God," the Apostle did not mean that He is great only in some respect, or by comparison with someone. He is great without any comparison, for He alone is great in the proper sense.

If the Son is such, then so also are the Father and the Holy Spirit, for They are equal in power and equal in honor.

Paul depicts these two comings in his letter to Titus with these words: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, teaching us that, denying impiety and worldly desires. We should live temperately, righteously, and piously in the present age, awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Do you see? He speaks both of the first coming, for which he gives thanks, and of the second, which we await. Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven. He will come in glory at the end of this world, on the last day.

“Awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” The appearing of grace taught men to await the appearing of glory. The two appearings are so closely joined that whoever has received the first also sees the last in spirit. The expressions “God” and “our Savior” both refer to Jesus Christ. Therefore this passage is one of the most important proofs of the Godhead of Jesus Christ (Rom 9:5; Rom 2:9).

In this place the Apostle touches on what God has done for our salvation, and on what is required for the same end from us ourselves.

"The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men." Here grace means not only the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which regenerate us and establish us in spiritual life.

It also means the whole divine economy of our salvation: the becoming man of the Son of God, the giving of the evangelical law, His redeeming death, and His saving Resurrection.

All this "appeared" and rose over the world like the sun, giving life, awakening, and saving men. Compare the use of "grace" below in Tit 3:4, Rom 5:2, and 2 Cor 8:9.

Here one should note how clearly the Apostle speaks of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this respect, this is one of the most remarkable dogmatic passages in Scripture. Our Savior Jesus Christ is directly called the great God here. That the Apostle is not speaking here of God the Father is clear from his further words about the future appearing of the glory of the great God. In the New Testament, this expression is never used of the Father, but always of the Son, in the sense of His second coming to earth.

The blessed hope is the hope of blessedness in the Kingdom of Heaven. By the grace of God it is planted in the heart of the true believer in the very act of calling and new birth in the font of baptism.

The one born here of the Spirit is a child of God. He knows and feels himself to be such in the depth of his heart. Feeling himself to be such, he feels that he belongs to God, has all that is God’s as his own, and is a direct heir of God.

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,” cf. Rom 8:16-17.