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For the grace of God that bringeth 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; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14
These verses that we have probably seen, heard, read and perhaps preached many times, show us that God has a plan for man and then tells us what that plan is. I am glad that God has a plan. Someone once said, “has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God.” God knows what is going on and none of it has ever surprised Him. The fact of the matter is before He ever created this world He had a plan for every man, woman and child that would ever live in it. This plan is three fold.
I. Save us - vs. 11 (highlighted portion)
This verse clues us in on the first part of God’s Plan for Man, that is to save us. There are three words in this verse that I want to look at as we consider God’s plan for man.
The first word is Grace. A great way to remember what Grace is all about is to remember God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Grace is when we get something we don’t deserve. That is exactly what salvation is, something we don’t deserve. Ephesians 2:8,9 sums it up quite well “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” The fact of the matter is there is no other way that we can get to heaven but the grace of God. We can’t be good enough, we can’t work hard enough, we can’t give enough money. We will get there through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which was made possible by the grace of God.
The Second word is Salvation. The word saved is a Bible word and I like what it means. It carries with it two meanings although we usually only think about the one. We have been saved from something, and thank God for that. A boy’s Sunday School teacher once asked a new visitor in his class if he had ever been saved. The young man replied that he had been saved and his teacher asked him to explain what happened. The boy told how that one day when walking home from school a large dog began to chase him. He ran but the dog was catching up so he jumped over a fence where the dog couldn’t get him and there he was saved, from the dog, that is. While that is not what the teacher meant it is a good picture of what has happened, we have been saved from death, hell, Satan and sin. We have been saved from something. The second meaning the word saved carries with it is Saved for something. Several years ago my family and I were in a larger church and were trying to find five seats together. We found an unoccupied pew and started to set down when someone told us that pew was saved for the choir. That pew was not saved from something (the Devil or a big dog) but it was saved for something (the choir). We are saved from something and for something. Verse 14 of the text tells us “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Our job as believers is to figure out what the work is that God has saved us for and to set about doing it.
The third word is the simple word all I believe that this word is important in this verse for two reasons:
1) It tells us that all men can be saved. This limited atonement garbage that some hold to is a damnable heresy. Never one time does the Bible tell us that there are people who Jesus didn’t die for. The most well known Bible verse in the world tells us that God so loved the world (not just part of the world). II Peter 3:9 tells us that God desires all men to come to repentance. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Isaiah 53:6 illustrates this point well “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” This verse starts and ends with the same word, all. The first part of the verse teaches us that we are all guilty of sin. Romans 3:23 and other places echo this point. The second all tells us that just as all have sinned there is pardon available to all. There will never be one person who can ever honestly say, “I wanted to be saved, but Jesus didn’t die for me.” One of the things that has always been funny to me is that all of the knuckleheads who believe this junk and attempt to bring this and other doctrines of devils (I Timothy 4:1) into our churches always believe that they are elect (and their wives, children and grandchildren) I might have an easier time swallowing their lies if I ever met one who said “I have to go to hell because God has not chosen me for salvation”.
2) It tells us that all are saved by Grace. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,” There is this school of thought among some of us that salvation has been different during each dispensation (or period of time) that God has dealt with men. These folks teach that in the Old Testament keeping the law saved people. During the tribulation it will be a mixture of works and grace and so on and so on. If we believe that this is true there are a number of verses you will have a problem explaining. Genesis 15:6 says of Abram that “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” This sounds like what some would call New Testament Salvation, but it is in the book of Genesis. This verse contains the first use of the word believed and righteousness in the Bible. I might also point out that if you understand Bible numbers at all the place in which this verse is found is significant (15:6). With the factors of 15 being 3 (divine manifestation) and 5 (Grace), and then verse 6 (man) we have here the divine manifestation of grace to man. There are a ton of other Scriptures I could reference to make my point but let me just mention one. “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” II Timothy 3:15 This verse bears several important truths. First it tells us that as a child Timothy had the Scriptures. It also tells us that these Scriptures showed him how to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ. Now bearing in mind that the Scriptures that Timothy had would have been Old Testament (because the New Testament was not yet written when he was a child) and that those Old Testament Scriptures taught him salvation by faith in Christ. How then is it possible for the plan for Old Testament salvation to be different from that which is laid out in the New Testament?????? It can’t be so.
The first step in God’s plan for man is that he wants to save us. All of us. In the next article we will pick up on verse 12 and look at the fact that after God saves us he wants to separate us.
In His service,
David Iseminger