Archive for July 15th, 2009
Titus 2:11-12:
For the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.
Here we have the grounds or considerations upon which all the foregoing directions are urged, taken from the nature and design of the gospel, and the end of Christ’s death.
I. From the nature and design of the gospel. Let young and old, men and women, masters and servants, and Titus himself, let all sorts do their respective duties, for this is the very aim and business of Christianity, to instruct, and help, and form persons, under all distinctions and relations, to a right frame and conduct. For this,
1. They are put under the dispensation of the grace of God, so the gospel is called, Eph. iii. 2. It is grace in respect of the spring of it—the free favor and good-will of God, not any merit or desert in the creature; as manifesting and declaring this good-will in an eminent and signal manner; and as it is the means of conveying and working grace in the hearts of believers. Now grace is obliging and constraining to goodness: Let not sin reign, but yield yourselves unto God; for you are not under the law, but under grace, Rom. vi. 12-14. The love of Christ constrains us not to live to self, but to him (2 Cor. v. 14, 15); without this effect, grace is received in vain.
2. This gospel grace brings salvation (reveals and offers it to sinners and ensures it to believers)—salvation from sin and wrath, from death and hell. Hence it is called the word of life; it brings to faith, and so to life, the life of holiness now and of happiness hereafter. The law is the ministration of death, but the gospel the ministration of life and peace. This therefore must be received as salvation (its rules minded, its commands obeyed), that the end of it may be obtained, the salvation of the soul. And more inexcusable will the neglecters of this grace of God bringing salvation now be, since,