Titus 2:13

προσδεχόμενοι κ. τ. λ., as already stated, describes the glad expectancy which is the ruling and prevailing thought in the lives of men looking for their Lord's return (Luke 12:36), προσδεχόμενοι τὸ ἔλεος τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ (Jude 1:21). Cf. Romans 8:19; 1 Corinthians 1:7; Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Hebrews 9:28; 2 Peter 3:12.Isaiah 25:9; Isaiah 25:9 is the basal passage. Cf. Acts 24:15, ἐλπίδα ἔχων εἰς τὸν Θεόν, ἣν καὶ αὐτοὶ οὗτοι προσδέχονται. In this quotation ἐλπίδα is the mental act, while the relative ἥν is the realisation of the hope. ἐλπίς is also passive the thing hoped for in Galatians 5:5; Colossians 1:5; 1 Timothy 1:1.

επιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης : The Second Coming of Christ will be, as we are assured by Himself, “in the glory of His Father” (Matthew 16:27; Mark 8:38). “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2, a passage which supports the view that δόξης here is dependent on ἐπλίδα as well as on ἐπιφάνειαν). von Soden takes ἐπιφάνειαν as epexegetical of ἐλπίδα. The Second Coming of Christ may, therefore, be regarded as an ἐπιφάνεια τῆς δόξης Θεοῦ, even though we should not speak of an ἐπιφάνεια τοῦ Πατρός, while ἐπιφάνεια Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is normal and natural (See on 1 Timothy 6:14). τῆς δόξης having then an intelligible meaning, we are not entitled to treat it as merely adjectival, the glorious appearing (A.V.). The genitival relation does not differ in this case from τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. See also note on 1 Timothy 1:11. Again, there does not seem any reason why τοῦ σωτῆρος, κ. τ. λ., here should not depend on ἐπιφάνειαν, on the analogy of 2 Timothy 1:10. This may be thought too remote. In any case, the conception of the Second Coming as an occasion of manifestation of two δόξαι, that of the Father and of the Son, is familiar from Luke 9:26, ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἑν τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς, κ. τ. λ. On the whole, then, we decide in favour of the R.V.m. in the rendering of this passage, appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The grammatical argument “the identity of reference of two substantives when under the vinculum of a common article” is too slender to bear much weight, especially when we take into consideration not only the general neglect of the article in these epistles but the omission of it before σωτήρ in 1 Timothy 1:1; 1 Timothy 4:10. Ellicott says that “ μεγάλου would seem uncalled for if applied to the Father”. To this it may be answered that (a) the epithet is not otiose here; as marking the majesty of God the Father it is parallel to the ὃς ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν, κ. τ. λ., which recalls the self-sacrificing love of the Son; both constituting the double appeal to fear and to love of the Judgment to come. (b) Again, St. Paul is nowhere more emphatic in his lofty language about God the Father than in these epistles; see 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Timothy 6:15-16.

This is the only place in the N.T. in which μέγας is applied to the true God, although it is a constant predicate of heathen gods and goddesses, e.g., Acts 19:28. (See Moulton and Milligan, Expositor, vii., vii. 563). In view of the fact that the most probable exegesis of Romans 9:5 is that ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων, Θεός εὐλογητὸς, κ. τ. λ. refers to Christ, it cannot be said that ὁ μέγας Θεός, as applied to Him, is un-Pauline. But the proofs that St. Paul held Christ to be God Incarnate do not lie in a few disputable texts, but in the whole attitude of his soul towards Christ, and in the doctrine of the relation of Christ to mankind which is set forth in his epistles. St. Paul's “declarations of the divinity of the Eternal Son” are not studied, as Ellicott admits that this would be if the R.V. rendering (our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ) be adopted. To this it may be added that the Versions, with the exception of the Aethiopic, agree with R.V.m. Ell. cites on the other side, of ante-Nicene writers, Clem. Alex., Protrept. § 7, and Hippolytus, quoted by Wordsworth besides the great bulk of the post-Nicene fathers. The text is one which would strike the eye of a reader to whose consciousness the Arian controversy was present; but it is safe to say that if it had read τοῦ σωτῆρος, the μεγάλου would have excited no comment. Consequently the papyri (all vii. A.D.) cited by J. H. Moulton (Grammar, vol. i. p. 84) “which attest the translation our great God and Saviour as current among Greek-speaking Christians” are too late as guides to St. Paul's meaning here. The similar problem in 2 Peter 1:1 must be discussed independently. At least, even if it be granted that the R.V. there is correct, and that 2 Peter 1:1 is an example of the transference to Christ of the language used of deified kings “in the papyri and inscriptions of Ptolemaic and Imperial times,” it does not follow that the same account must be given of Titus 2:13.