Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος, Paul wrote in his letter to Titus 3:8. “The saying is sure,” or ‘trustworthy.’ What is the saying, the word, logos, that is sure and trustworthy? It’s what Paul wrote immediately before his statement of trustworthy logos. And what he wrote is a statement of faith that I compare in importance to Philippians 2:5-11.
Titus 3:5-7
Ὅτε δὲ ἡ χρηστότης καὶ ἡ φιλανθρωπία ἐπεφάνη
τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ,
οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων τῶν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ
ἃ ἐποιήσαμεν ἡμεῖς,
ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ αὐτοῦ ἔλεος
ἔσωσεν ἡμᾶς διὰ λουτροῦ παλινγενεσίας
καὶ ἀνακαινώσεως πνεύματος ἁγίου
οὗ ἐξέχεεν ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς πλουσίως
διὰ Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν,
ἵνα δικαιωθέντες τῇ ἐκείνου χάριτι
κληρονόμοι γενηθῶμεν κατ᾽ ἐλπίδα ζωῆς αἰωνίου.
My translation:
When the kindness and philanthropy of our Savior God appeared,
He saved us, not because of works that we did in [our] righteousness,
But according to His mercy by the washing of rebirth
And renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He richly poured on us
Through Jesus Christ our Savior,
So that justified by His grace
We become inheritors in hope of eternal life.
I like to leave the Greek as ‘philanthropy’ rather than ‘love for humankind’ or other similar expansions in English. God’s kindness and philanthropy was revealed in our salvation. And note how Paul describes our salvation being an act of the Trinity: in His mercy God works our renewal by the Holy Spirit whom God poured on us through Jesus Christ our Savior. This is a classic description of Trinitarian action. Father, Son and Holy Spirit together work our salvation. All of God’s inner being was needed to bring salvation to sinful humans! This is the Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος. Trust in this word of salvation, not in works of our righteousness. Of course God has prepared works for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). But those works are different than the ones we choose in our assumed righteousness.
After some personal commendations, Paul concludes his letter to Titus:
All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. (Titus 3:15)
Grace, it’s always grace between Christians, because it’s grace between us and God. Physicists and cosmologists are looking for the Unified Field Theory that unites all the forces in existence and explains everything in the universe. They’ve been searching for that one equation that does it all since Einstein began the search; to no avail thus far. Perhaps such a theory will never be found! But I say, grace is the unified field in which the universe exists and has its being. Grace is how God works. And grace should be our motivation. After all, we are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).
But let me get a little mystical here. Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος. But Jesus is the incarnate Logos (Word) of God (John 1:1-18). The Logos who created the universe with its encrypted Unified Field equation, is the same Logos who gave the law to Moses, the law the Jewish people lived by. As the incarnate Logos, Jesus called himself the Son of Man – and he had authority over the law, as he made clear to the scribes and religious teachers (Mark 2:27-28). He also had authority to say not one iota, one dot of the law would be erased until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:17-18). Accomplished? ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται – until all things took place. I understand this to mean until His earthly life was finished, accomplished at the crucifixion. Jesus died on the cross so we can be freed from law and traditions. He died on the cross so we can be free to live by grace!
Grace is the key to our existence. Grace unites us with God. Grace is our theosis. Grace is the field in which the universe moves and has its being. We along with the universe, we move to the end-point when our lives will be accomplished and we will enter into the divine life. And there we will say τετέλεσται – it is done, it is accomplished, praise God!
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