Titus 2:14,15

Titus 2:14. For us, on our behalf. The design of Christ's self-offering to death was a moral one

to set us free by payment of a ransom-price (see the root text in Matthew 20:28) from iniquity (or sin viewed as lawlessness, comp. 1 John 1:3-4). The principle of lawless living is thought of as a tyrannical usurper over human nature. Its hold is broken when the price is paid for the slave that price the ‘precious blood,' as in 1 Peter 1:18-19. The redeeming act which is past describes one side of salvation. Another follows in the cleansing of the redeemed: purify to himself a people who shall be His own private possession; so peculiar means here a much misused expression. The phrase is from the Pentateuch; see Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 26:18Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy 26:18. In New Testament, the only parallel is 1 Peter 2:9, where, however, the word is different. The ethical design of this redemption, which is also a cleansing of His people, becomes again emphatic in the last clause (zealous of good works), recurring to the radical idea (Titus 2:12) that the Gospel revelation of grace contemplates as its aim a holy life. On general thought compare Romans 6

Titus 2:15 reverts at the close to the opening of the section in Titus 2:1. Titus is to teach (speak), and also to urge to duty (exhort), and also convict (or rebuke) the disobedient after a fashion so vigorous and bold that no man in Crete shall undervalue him. Cf. 1 Timothy 4:12.

Authority is here ‘imperativeness' of manner (Alford).