Titus 1:2

ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι ζωῆς αἰωνίου, in hope of life eternal. This is the hope in which the labours of the Apostolic ministry are cheerfully endured; cp. 1 Timothy 1:16; 1 Timothy 6:12, and for ἐπί with the dat. see on 1 Timothy 4:10; 1 Timothy 5:5.

ἣν ἐπηγγείλατο ὁ�, which (sc. ζωὴ αἰώνιος) God, Who cannot lie, promised before times eternal. The ‘promise of life’ occupies a prominent place in the salutation here, as at 2 Timothy 1:1; for the ‘life’ of which ‘godliness has the promise,’ see on 1 Timothy 4:8.

The adj. ἀψευδής only occurs elsewhere in the Greek Bible at Wis 7:17; see Hebrews 6:18; Romans 3:4 for the thought of God’s abiding truth. Cp. also John 14:6, where He Who is the Truth declares Himself also to be the Life.

πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων has been understood by some commentators to mean simply ‘from ancient times,’ and the allusion would thus be to the dim revelations of ζωὴ αἰώνιος which had been vouchsafed in the centuries long precedent to the Incarnation. But it seems better to take the phrase as at 2 Timothy 1:9, before times eternal. The promise was made before time was, in the eternal purpose of God.