“awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Titus 2:13
The common Trinitarian claim regarding this verse is that it identifies Jesus Christ as “the great God and Saviour.” This verse being one of the few that they argue calls Jesus “God.”
In order for this to work, they must insist that the phrase “our great God and Saviour” is one phrase and both nouns apply to one individual, “Jesus Christ.” This is simply a matter of punctuation. Remember that the original copies and our earliest manuscripts of the NT did not include punctuation at all. These are up to translators, commentators, and interpreters to place in as it seems fit or as they are grammatically consistent. If we compare the following two translations:
- Our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ.
- Our great God, and saviour Jesus Christ.
We see that the first seems to indicate Jesus is God and Saviour, while the second translation reads as if there are two. One is the great God, the other is the Saviour Jesus. Resting an argument for Jesus to be called “God” on the placing of an ambiguous comma seems like a very weak foundation to build an argument.
Another problem we see is that this same language is used earlier in this letter. Titus 1:4 reads: “To Titus, my true child according to our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.” In this case, God is the Father, Jesus is the Saviour. This verse is unambiguous in this matter. One of the basic fundamental rules of hermeneutics is that we let the light interpret the dark. In other words, we rely on and plant out stake on the more clear passages of scripture, and we use these to shine light on the more obscure passages of scripture. If Paul has set a theme here of God being the Father and Jesus being the saviour, then it tells us how we ought to read Titus 2:13. Giving further contextual evidence, there are no other trinitarian arguments given from the letter to Titus. Nowhere else in this short letter do we find anything stated that seems to imply that Jesus is God or that God is the Trinity. Given that there is only one verse that might say this, we are building again on a weak foundation to say that this passage teaches that Jesus is our great God.
This alone should be sufficient enough to disregard the Trinitarian claim. However, they insist upon this being “the only way to read and translation this verse.” They do so by appealing to the Granville Sharp Rule, and say that it must grammatically and necessarily refer to Jesus as both “God and Saviour,” it can not be applied to two persons as is the case in Titus 1:4.
I have already discussed the Granville Sharp Rule at length before and outlined some articles on it to explain it in detail. It is not just one rule, but several rules. These rules have been modified and updated in recent years in an effort to make this a hard and fast rule of Greek grammar, and yet, scholars are about 50/50 on the issue. Straightforwardly, appealing to a very strange rule of Greek grammar no one knew about for over 1,800 years to make at most 3 verses in the Bible say that Jesus is God, seems to be a stretch and a dishonest platform to begin with. I do not buy that this was a grammatical rule that everyone consistently followed in a time where there were not even set rules on how to spell words. It is not uncommon to find a Greek word spelled phonetically, and the same word spelled different ways in the span of one page. To say that everyone always followed this one rule of grammar in all of ancient antiquity doesn’t sound plausible to me.
But let us assume for the sake of argument that they are correct in saying that the Granville Sharp Rule(s) do insist that both titles are applied to one person. Why do Trinitarians insist they must both be applied to Jesus? Reading this passage again, notice: “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” It does not say we are awaiting the appearing of our God and Saviour Jesus. It says we are awaiting the appearing of “the glory of God.” The glory of God is Jesus. The “God and Saviour” is the Father. Many people do not consider this because every time they see the word “saviour” in the NT, they assume it must be Jesus. However, a word search on this word shows that the Father is called our saviour almost as many times as Jesus is. It isn’t untrue to call God our Saviour and Jesus our saviour. In the OT, God says that “there is no saviour apart from me” (Isaiah 43:11). Yet, many of the Judges were called the saviours of Israel (Judges 3:9, 15, 31, 6:14, 36-37, 8:22, 13:5, 2 Kings 13:4-5, Nehemiah 9:27). “Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them… Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge (Judges 2:16, 18). Jesus is the saviour that God raised up for the world, and God was with him, just as God was with the judges by whom we saved Israel. God the Father is our saviour, and it is not inappropriate to call him such. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47). “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1). Paul is not opposed to calling God our Saviour, even in this same letter. “and in His own seasons revealed in His word, in the proclamation with which I have been entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior” (Titus 1:3).
Yes, the Father is our great God, and yes, the Father is our saviour. Both titles apply to one subject, following Sharp’s rule. But what about this phrase, “the appearing of the glory of?” Is Jesus appearing in the glory of the Father? Yes.
Look at 1 John 2:28-29. It says: “And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we might have boldness and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know also that everyone practicing righteousness has been begotten of Him.”
It’s talking about “his coming.” People generally assume this must be Jesus because they think the Father doesn’t come during the advent. But look at the next verse. “We are begotten of him.” We aren’t begotten of Jesus. We are talking about the appearing of the Father.
1 Thessalonians 4:14, the famous rapture passage, says: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those having fallen asleep.” 1 Timothy 6:14-15 says something very similar.
Note what Jesus said at his trial about his coming: “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels.” (Matthew 16:24). Jesus comes in the glory of his father. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus radiates the glory of God, that is, the Father. So, is Jesus the appearance of God’s glory? Yeah. So, who is the “God and Saviour” in Titus? Very clearly the Father. Jesus is the appearance of his glory.
Titus 2:13: Awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of [the Father] our great God and Savior, [that appearing of his glory is] Jesus Christ.
Even when we apply the shady Granville Sharp Rule, we still see that Paul is not calling Jesus our “God” in this passage. Jesus returns with the Father, and in the Father’s glory, this is what the passage is talking about. Do not let Trinitarians flash this passage, or 2 Peter 1:1
to confuse you into thinking that Jesus may be called “God” here.