Titus 3:7

being justified … be made heirs The word -justifying" and -justification" occur 25 times in the great group of Epistles, written 10 years before this to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, whose subject is -Christ the Redeemer," -Christ for us." It has not been used in the next great group written five years before this, to the Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians, whose subject is -Christ the Life," -Christ in us," -Christ our Sanctification." -Righteousness," however, that right relation between God and man, the restoration to which isjustification, occurs seven times against 50 times in the former group. So in Ephesians 5:26 (already quoted as parallel in form and sense to our present passage), -the cleansing" isthe justifying, and the -sanctifying" follows, as here -being heirs" follows. This verse then, in its two clauses, repeats, with reference to God the Son, what in Titus 3:5 was said with reference to God the Father as to the twofold saving mercy; just as in the former -Gospel" passage, Titus 2:11-14, -renunciation" and -obedience" are both spoken of, first as the work of God the Father's grace (11, 12), and then as the result of God the Son's gift of Himself (14). The justification by God the Father's grace the regeneration effected potentially once for all by Christ through His death, resurrection and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and appropriated individually by Faith (expressed or implied) in Baptism, is to be followed by a -life of heirship" or -sanctification"; so the Latin translation of Theod. Mops. -ut heredes efficiamur," and the comment, -at segregavit nos in ditissimam quam nobis bonorum praestitit fruitionem," the third of the Baptismal Blessings, -inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," with a right and title to receive now -the fruits of the Spirit."

according to the hope of eternal life (1) In A.V. and R.V. it is implied that these words are to be taken together and -made heirs" left absolute; then this last clause finds an eloquent expansion in Ephesians 5:27 (see above), and -glorification" crowns -sanctification," as sanctification followed justification. (2) The R.V. margin gives -heirs, according to hope, of eternal life." in this case -eternal life" must most fittingly be interpreted as usually in St John, and 1Ti 4:8; 1 Timothy 6:12; 1 Timothy 6:19, -the spiritual life that is and is to come;" -according to hope," will be as Ephesians 4:4, -called in one hope of your calling," and 1 Timothy 1:1, -Christ Jesus our hope," where this life's state of salvation must be included in the object of hope; and -justification" and -sanctification" will be the only two objects named of the Spirit's outpouring. But the phrase in Titus 1:2, as there interpreted, favours (1).